


Dead Men Talking

by purplejabberwocky



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/M, Mevolent's War era, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon, The Dead Men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 22:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/pseuds/purplejabberwocky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dead Men: Eight of the most powerful sorcerers in Mevolent's war. They're also eight of the craziest. It was a long and rocky road getting there ... but at least one thing never changed.</p><p>Even in the beginning, they were crazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tailored for investigation

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of 'Dead Men Talking' thanks to the new canon provided by book eight; the former version is still available through my profile. This version contains spoilers for all books. Later chapters will take place in a war-era setting, so violence warnings will be applicable.
> 
> Chapters will follow a loosely chronological order.
> 
> Larrikin and Hopeless' first Taken names are not canon, but my headcanon only. Everyone's Given names, where applicable, are also headcanon only. Please attribute if using.

Descry Hopeless hurried along the cobbled street, keeping his head down and hood up against the drizzle. He was out in Dublin on business, but not all that business belonged to his master, and that was what made his heart beat faster than it should have. It wasn’t that he was disobeying an order, precisely. It was that he was pursuing an action his master had already dismissed. By its very execution, he was taking matters into his own hands.

Just the thought made Descry’s stomach twist. He’d never done anything like this before. He’d never even _considered_ doing anything like this before. But it was important. There was nothing more important. Descry just wished his master had believed him; it would have made things so much easier. People would have listened to Eachan Meritorious, but Descry Hopeless was going to need proof.

So while Descry was in Dublin on his master’s business, there was a reason Descry was choosing to commission Master Meritorious’s new clothes from this particular tailor.

He wasn’t well-known. He was a mortal, actually, and most sorcerers had a chip on their shoulders about using mortals for anything. Master Meritorious wasn’t one of them and Descry knew for a fact this tailor was talented; it was simply that Master Meritorious hadn’t been told about him until Descry had quietly made the suggestion. Master Meritorious, amused and indulgent, had agreed to test this new tailor if only to make Descry feel better about having his previous assertions so overwhelmingly rejected.

Sometimes Descry almost felt condescended to. Almost. He still owed Master Meritorious far too much to accuse him of that, no matter how much he knew Master Meritorious still viewed him as some sort of pathetic, if exceedingly useful, stray. He didn’t mean to. That was more important.

But Descry was still going to a mortal tailor on business for his employer, because he was hoping the tailor’s son could help with his own.

There weren’t many people on the street. It was too early, too drizzly, for that. So early that Descry was actually worried he’d get turned away at the door, except that he had no reason to come out during the day. Technically speaking, he could have just sent a page with the order to come to the townhouse. Technically speaking, he had no reason to _leave_ the townhouse during the day without Master Meritorious’s say-so. It wasn’t that Master Meritorious wouldn’t give it. It was just that to ask for it was out-of-character on Descry’s part.

Still, it _was_ early. The rain was keeping people indoors for the moment even though most of the craftsmen were already awake, if not their shops open. With luck Master Ardan would be willing to see him regardless.

Descry spotted the tailor’s sign down the street and hurried toward it, testing the door. Locked. Locked, but there was someone inside. More than one person inside, actually. He made an effort not to listen too closely—it was rude at the best of times, but it struck him as even ruder to do so when they weren’t even standing face-to-face. Instead he knocked, a little uncertainly, and was rewarded with a ripple of unworried surprise from inside.

He waited patiently for Master Ardan to come to the door and open it widely. He wasn’t a big man, Master Ardan, but he was unafraid of a stranger on his doorstep in the grey of dawn; instead his eyes gleamed with curiosity as he looked Descry over.

“May I help you?” he asked, his Irish still accented by his Norman origins. Which was why he wasn’t well-known. He could choose an Irish name, but anyone talking to him would know from where he’d come, and very few of those willing to give his tailoring the chance it deserved. Descry was hoping that meant he wouldn’t be willing to turn away a prospective customer.

Descry bowed and spoke in Norman French. “Good morning, sir. I beg your indulgence; I have some business to discuss. May I come in?”

Master Ardan was surprised at being accosted so early in the day, but as Descry had hoped the tailor was both curious and unwilling to reject the chance for patronage. He was, as well, gratified by the sound of his own language from a complete stranger.

“Of course,” said the tailor in the same, smiling and welcome, and ushered Descry into his small shop. “How may I be of service, sir?”

Relieved by the warmth and the cover, Descry lowered his hood, careful so as not to splatter the floor with drops of water. He had no need to look around, so he didn’t, and instead addressed the tailor. “My master is in need of some new clothes, something perhaps a little different to his usual taste, and felt you might be able to accommodate him.”

Descry extended a hand to offer Master Ardan the folded note containing the townhouse’s address. Master Ardan took the note without surprise, but Descry was vaguely discomforted by the sharpness of his gaze as he looked up. “A page could have easily brought me such a thing,” he said, “and I note also you declined to give me a name. Is there something else you required?”

For a moment Descry hesitated. He had expected to simply divine the location of Master Ardan’s son on his own, and seek him out. He had not expected to be so confronted. Descry was well versed in remaining unseen and unnoticed, but direct subterfuge was far from his call. “My name is Descry Hopeless,” he admitted at last, “and I heard your son was in the business of tailoring ... special outfits, for those in need.”

Recognition flashed in Master Ardan’s eyes. “You’re a sorcerer?” A little startled by the forthrightness of the question, Descry nodded. “And your master?” After a moment, Descry nodded again. “And which of you is in need of my son’s services?” Descry shifted uneasily, uncertain how to answer without actively lying or having to explain more than he wished. Master Ardan’s mouth twitched with understanding. “Ah. Neither and both, I take it.”

He was blushing, Descry was aware. Not much, but enough for Master Ardan to notice and be amused and curious at once. But he was also a discreet man, and so in the end only nodded, bowing slightly and motioning toward a curtained doorway behind the counter. “My son is in the back. He is with a friend, but they would both be glad to receive you, I am sure.”

“Thank you.” Embarrassed and discomforted in equal measures, Descry drew his cloak closer and more protectively around him, and followed the tailor’s direction. ‘A friend’, Master Ardan had said, but Descry already knew this friend was precisely the reason he was seeking the tailor’s son at all. He heard the voices from behind the curtain at the end of the hall, speaking English, and while he didn’t stop to listen, he couldn’t help but overhear.

“—and _then_ she told me I had a face like a rooster,” said the friend, sounding indignant and bemused at once. His voice was the smoothest Descry had ever heard. “Obviously this is such a bald-faced lie I’m not entirely certain where a lady should get the idea. A rooster? Me?”

“What did you say back?” asked the tailor’s son in a tone of resigned amusement, as if he had heard this—or variations thereof—many, many times and had long since settled for simply allowing his friend the outlet without objection.

“Nothing. She went strutting off before I could. And she calls _me_ the rooster?”

“You just spluttered at her, didn’t you?”

“Of course not. I’m never at a loss for words. By the way, you have a guest waiting in the hallway.”

Descry, having just lifted his hand to knock on the jamb, paused and blinked. Then the curtain was swept aside and he abruptly found himself face-to-face with a man much taller and broader than Master Ardan, and with a face so scarred it would have made Descry flinch if he hadn’t already known what to expect. His eyes were kind, though. They were Master Ardan’s eyes.

“Ghastly Bespoke?” Descry asked, his voice uncertain even though he already knew and it wasn’t actually a question. He was just a little nonplussed. There had barely been any warning at all that Ghastly’s friend had known he was there before he was stating it. Descry wasn’t used to being surprised. Then again, even on the surface there was something odd about the man, though Descry hadn’t yet set eyes on him. Something fast and darting, like fire. Or perhaps lightning.

“Yes,” said Ghastly with a confused but friendly enough smile. He’d been expecting a flinch.

Descry bowed. “Descry Hopeless. May I come in? I have a need to speak with you and Master Pleasant.”

“ _Master_ Pleasant,” said the friend, sounding pleased and amused at once. “See, Ghastly, someone has their manners right.”

“Please don’t encourage him,” Ghastly said to Descry with a roll of his eyes as he stood aside and waved Descry in.

“Forgive me,” Descry mumbled, stepping in and to the side, against the wall by the door. His gaze was drawn almost instantly by the young man lounging in a faded armchair opposite the workbench. He was handsome, enough to be a contrast to his friend’s appearance, with a ready twinkle in his green eyes and a lingering assured smile around his mouth. He sat forward with his elbows on his knees and every implication of attention.

“Did you know,” he said, “that the average dockhand earns six pennies a day?”

“I do now,” said Descry automatically.

“Yes you do. Did you also know that this wage tends to make them grouchy and resentful to anyone with even the merest indication of money?”

“I … was aware of this, yes.” No more or less than anyone else on the same wage, but Master Pleasant was leading up to something and Descry could not be immediately sure of what it was, though certainly he could find out with only minor effort. He chose not to, both out of courtesy and the sheer novelty of not knowing.

“Wouldn’t you say, then, that bribing them for information using _guineas_ is a mite overzealous and dangerous in the sense of encouraging them to shamelessly blackmail you for more at the most inopportune times—such as when you’re being pursued by a dozen men with swords and in dire need of a boat?”

“I—” Descry hesitated. What was he meant to say? Master Pleasant was expecting a specific answer, but agreeing with him would constitute lying. Would he prefer a truthful answer or no answer at all? Determining _that_ would be more discourteous than Descry was willing to be. Finally he settled on, “I don’t feel qualified to answer that question.”

“But you have an opinion on it,” Master Pleasant pointed out. “Or you wouldn’t have hesitated.”

Descry shifted uncomfortably, his gaze automatically falling to Master Pleasant’s feet. He was a man of wealth, a clansman too minor for a place in any landsmeet, but a noble nonetheless. “It’s not my place to contradict the opinion of a—”

“Not your place?” Master Pleasant repeated, just as Ghastly made a noise somewhere between surprise and incredulity. “What _is_ your place, then?”

This was getting out of hand. Descry had given himself plenty of time to get back before Meritorious needed him—he was usually an early riser, but he had bedded late last night and allowed himself the indulgence of sleeping late every now and then—but this situation, somehow, had spiralled out of any control Descry might have entertained. “Please,” he said instead, knowing it was rude to change the subject so abruptly but unsure how else to proceed, “I need your help.”

“Of course you do,” said Master Pleasant. “Most people need my help. Who do you work for?”

“I’d rather not—”

“Well, then, who _are_ you?”

“Hopeless. Descry Hopeless. I need—”

“Never heard of you, but you prefer it that way, I imagine. What do you do?”

“I’m a gentleman’s gentleman. Master Pleasant—”

“I thought sorcerers were beyond all this master-slave business,” Master Pleasant said to Ghastly, completely ignoring Descry. Descry withdrew into silence, hunched against the wall, and considered leaving since Master Pleasant so obviously wasn’t interested in hearing him out; yet something in his bearing contradicted that assumption, and Descry’s task was too important to ignore.

“Most of them are,” said Ghastly from the table, where he was measuring a length of fabric with far less attention than Descry might have thought was wise had he not known better. “But some of the older clans still keep servants, mostly sorcerers who don’t have the magic to protect themselves.”

“Ah.” Master Pleasant nodded and turned back to Descry. “So you’re magically impotent and looking for evidence that will allow you to exit this demeaning contract with your master, whoever it is, with your life and means intact, am I correct?”

Something hot and twisted rose in Descry’s chest. It took him a moment to realise that it was affront; he’d never felt the emotion himself before. It was unexpected and powerful, enough that he dared to lift his eyes to meet Master Pleasant’s gaze as he said with quiet resolve, “I would never insult my master in such a way.” Master Pleasant sat back, pleased and disappointed at once. He was also about to speak, but Descry did so first and before his mouth had even opened, neatly sidestepping any rudeness in cutting him off directly. “You were also trying to trick me into naming my master. I beg you either hear me out or send me away, but please refrain from making me the fool.”

Ghastly laughed. “He’s got you there, Skulduggery.”

“He does not,” said Master Pleasant. “I don’t make fools of people. I let people make fools of themselves.”

“By tricking them with wordplay.”

“A minor detail. Very well, Hopeless.” Master Pleasant sat forward again, quite abruptly, with an odd ironic lilt to the way he said Descry’s name. “What do you need, exactly?”

Descry opened his mouth and froze. Now the time had come to actually clarify, he didn’t know what to say. Meritorious hadn’t believed him, and Descry had been his valet for upwards of a hundred and fifty years. Why should these men believe him? He wasn’t wrong. He was never wrong. But he was only a servant, and one with dubious reasons for being so at that. They would ask why he hadn’t told his master, why his master didn’t believe him. They would ask how he knew and he would tell them, he would have to, but then they would be suspicious, they wouldn’t anything to _do_ with him. Or worse.

“Hopeless?” Master Pleasant tilted his head, still with that faint wry smile at juxtaposition with the keenness of his green eyes. “Cat got your tongue?”

“I—”

He had to speak, but the words weren’t coming. Panic fluttered in his chest, closing his throat. Ghastly had put down his fabric and was coming closer, concerned. Descry closed his eyes and hunched back into the wall for stability, and his fingers found the prayer-rope inside his coat.

“Hopeless?” Ghastly’s voice was gentle and worried, the touch on his shoulder light. With a mental plea for forgiveness Descry seized on the man’s presence and breathed out slowly. Ghastly Bespoke was steady, with a wistful desire for an unassuming life that would never be granted and a resigned solidness to the trials thrown at him. Again and again he’d been rejected, until only quiet resolve was left.

It was exactly what Descry needed. Without opening his eyes, spoke. “I need you to investigate a man of nobility for me—or his allies. I need evidence of something they’re planning, to bring to the clans. His name is Mevolent. He’s a minor noble in the landsmeet, but he’s charismatic. He’s a worshipper of the Faceless Ones, and once he’s gained enough support he intends to secure rulership of the Irish Sanctuary in a coup.”

Neither Ghastly nor Skulduggery said anything. Then Skulduggery said abruptly, “Why did your voice change?”

Descry opened his eyes, blinking in confusion. Sometimes it took him a moment or two to remember what he was doing, after borrowing someone like that. “What?”

“Your voice,” Skulduggery repeated. “The tone and even your accent, to some degree, changed. While we’re at it, how do you know all that? Usually the most people can tell me is ‘something is wrong and I need to find out what’.”

And here it was. Descry swallowed, resisting the urge to rub his sweaty palms against his tunic, and clutched for the remnants of Ghastly’s calm. “I’m a mind-reader.”

This time the surprise was so loud it was almost palpable, enough to be grounding. Ghastly drew back. Master Pleasant blinked and looked at him. “I thought you said mind-reading was impossible?”

“It is,” Ghastly said with a frown. “The nearest thing is a sort of Sensitivity which relies on touch and concentration, and it can be defended against. It’s not very reliable.”

Master Pleasant looked back at Descry. “But you’re a mind-reader?”

Descry nodded wordlessly. The doubt and the curiosity were both loud in Master Pleasant’s mind, even through the dart of his surface thoughts. That was what made him so strange to read. The surface of his mind flitted everywhere without stopping, taking in everything with such speed that Descry couldn’t even be sure what he was focussing upon—if anything. In that second alone he had observed that mind-reading was an appropriate magic for a nobleman’s valet; wondered what he Descry would hear if he could read the mind of a Certain Someone upon whom Skulduggery did not care to think too deeply; considered that his own mind was most likely at risk; and mused upon Descry’s clothes. Why he cared about Descry’s clothes given he wasn’t even a tailor, Descry didn’t read, but those were only the most prominent thoughts in the second, and far from the only ones.

“Prove it,” said Master Pleasant. “Read my mind. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Skulduggery, you don’t _believe_ him?” Ghastly asked, sounding exasperated, and Descry looked down. The tailor’s disbelief was unexpectedly cutting.

“There’s one way to find out, isn’t there?” Master Pleasant crossed his arms and sat back. “Go on, Hopeless. Tell me something I already know.”

Descry opened his mouth to say that he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, and then closed it again. It _was_ rude, and yet he did it at his master’s behest all the time. What made this different, except that Descry did it of his own volition? Master Pleasant had given his permission. And Descry did want to know what was behind that quicksilver dart of thought.

He was careful. After his first time, Descry knew how dangerous it was to simply leap into someone’s mind without caution. Just earlier, he had seized on Ghastly’s mind with enough desperation to disorient himself. This time, Descry made sure not to let that happen.

What he found was someone clinical and curious and _quick_. The surface of Master Pleasant’s thoughts were like lightning, snatching at experiences. Behind that was something no less fast, but efficient and circular—someone who allowed his mind the illusion of free rein and all the while filing everything away in its proper place. Not like a puppet, not like a mannequin, but like something Descry could not yet describe.

There was a trick to it. There was always a trick to reading the mind of someone with a unique pattern of thought. But Descry had never met anyone whose mind went in such meandering circles, accepting new information and discarding the uninteresting and yet still, somehow, meeting with previous conclusions; and all the while taking in _more_.

Descry seized on a memory looping from _spluttering_ to _loss for words_ to _stuttering_ and blurted, “When you were a child you would talk at your mirrors for hours, hoping that by speaking about everything to nothing you could train your voice not to betray you on the slightest word.”

Then he stopped to actually listen to what he had said. No wonder Master Pleasant liked to talk so much, and had such a smooth voice.

Descry realised they were both staring at him, and looked up. “Firstly,” said Master Pleasant finally, “it wasn’t _hours_. It was maybe half an hour every other day. One or two hours a week.”

Ghastly turned to stare at _him_ , the tailor’s mind suffused with enough shock to make his numb comment ring clear. Descry said it for him. “ _Hours_ , Skulduggery? I knew you were self-absorbed, but that’s pushing it even for you.” The tailor’s head snapped around, his eyes wide. Descry felt his cheeks warm and he looked down to the ground, unconsciously pressing his back more securely against the wall. “Forgive me,” he mumbled. “I was only—he asked for proof—I should—”

“You really are a mind-reader,” Ghastly said, his tone a mix of wondering and awe and fear.

Descry hunched deeper into the wall, his hands gripping his elbows, and swallowed the plea for mercy on his lips. He simply nodded instead.

“So you read all this from Mevolent’s mind,” Master Pleasant mused. “Why didn’t you take this to Meritorious?”

At first Descry opened his mouth to answer. Then he paled and shut it again, and Master Pleasant’s smugness left no veils over just how he had figured that out. He had seen Master Meritorious before, and Descry’s cloak was edged with thread that mimicked his master’s clan crest. From those simple clues alone, Master Pleasant had figured it out.

“I—I did,” Descry stammered.

Master Pleasant tilted his head. “And he didn’t believe you? I assumed he knew what your magic is.”

“He does.”

Ghastly frowned. “Then why didn’t he believe you?”

“He’s—he’s got a lot on his mind.”

“That sounds an awful lot like an excuse,” observed Master Pleasant, and then paused. “Though I suppose you would know. He thought you were wrong, didn’t he? Have you ever been wrong?” Descry shook his head. “But he still didn’t believe you. So he’s being willingly blind because he doesn’t like what you’re telling him, because it would take too much effort to actually try and stop it, and he’s too focussed on expanding his political horizons to want to do _that_. Am I right?”

Descry couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t agree, because that would demean his master’s honour, and Master Meritorious wasn’t so terrible a man for Master Pleasant’s accusation to be entirely true. But he couldn’t object either, because that would be at least partly lie. So he said nothing and stared at the floor.

“But you don’t want to admit it,” Master Pleasant continued, “because for whatever reason, you feel strongly beholden to him and you’re a fellow oddly lacking in any self-esteem whatsoever. I thought _Ghastly_ was bad.”

“Oy.”

“Come now, Ghastly, you hide your face whenever we go out in public and hate meeting new people, and our new friend here _still_ manages to make you seem positively social.”

Ghastly frowned. “I’m not the topic of conversation here. This Mevolent person—you said he was only a minor member of the landsmeet?”

“Yes,” Descry said quietly. “He isn’t a clan head. Yet. His eldest brother is. His father died suddenly a year ago and his sister has fallen mysteriously incurably ill.”

“Let me guess,” said Master Pleasant. “His brother isn’t very good at leading, but since he’s the eldest, it stands to reason he’s the clan head, even though he frequently asks his younger brother’s opinion behind closed doors. And Mevolent already has plans to get him out of the way the moment he has enough support of his own.”

“ _I_ could have guessed that,” Ghastly grumbled.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Master Pleasant persisted, and Descry nodded bemusedly. “What a charming family. What happened to his sister?”

“He claims she saw a vision and it drove her insane.”

“What _actually_ happened?”

“That actually isn’t too far off the mark. His father used to collect spellbooks, but in the same way an art collector collects forgeries. One of them was real, real enough that Mevolent was able to use his sister to power a ritual. I don’t know if it actually worked the way it supposed to or not, but he’s convinced it did as far as it was able, and that the ritual in the book he used was accurate but incomplete.”

“What was he trying to do, exactly?”

“Which _book_ was he using, exactly?” Ghastly cut in, frowning. He was worried, justifiably; his mother had a large collection of items related to the Ancients, and Mevolent was a worshipper of the Faceless Ones. A good deal of those artefacts overlapped. Descry could have told him in an instant he didn’t have this book, but he chose to answer Master Pleasant’s question instead.

“He was trying to summon a Faceless One,” Descry admitted.

“Excellent,” said Master Pleasant. “Just what we needed, a religious fanatic. Which book was he using, exactly?”

Descry felt his cheeks warm against his will at the disdain in Master Pleasant’s voice and thoughts as he said ‘religious fanatic’. He mumbled, “A book. Just a book.”

“For a man who’s had to spend his life concealing his magic, you’re a terrible liar, you know.”

The flush deepened and Descry looked at the floor, turning the knots of his prayer rope beneath his cloak. Even though it had been a long time since he’d actively _worshipped_ God, the knowledge of the book Mevolent used filled Descry with a visceral sort of horror. One ritual out of the hundreds Mevolent tried had worked, but it was the one to summon a _demon_ , and it used the names of the most holy, of every being Descry had been taught were the highest of high and gloriously divine.

If they existed.

There were hundreds more rituals in that book. Would any of the others work too? The ones that summoned an _angel_?

“ _The Key of Solomon,_ ” he whispered. “He used _The Key of Solomon._ ”

There was a short chagrined pause. Then Master Pleasant said, “Ah. You wouldn’t happen to be a religious fanatic, would you, Hopeless?”

“No.”

“And yet you looked quite ill at the thought Mevolent would be summoning evil gods using a book supposedly written by one of God’s most favoured kings.”

“It’s a Christian book?” Ghastly asked, startled, and Descry spoke before he could stop himself, looking up at him.

“It is _not_ a Christian book. It has _never_ been a Christian book. It was written by someone wanting to hide his actions under the name of the divine and corrupt that name for his own purposes—”

They were staring. The rest of Descry’s words trailed off into a furious memory belonging to someone who had lived two centuries ago. His face warmed further and Descry cast his gaze back down, muttering an embarrassed apology.

“See?” said Master Pleasant almost conversationally at Ghastly. “Religious fanatic. You should add him to your collection, Ghastly. A sorcerer who believes in God—you’ll have people paying gold to see him.”

“Shut up, Skulduggery.” Unexpectedly Descry felt Ghastly’s hand on his arm, and even though the touch was gentle he still flinched. Ghastly paused and then took his elbow more firmly, and guided him away from the wall toward another armchair. “Sit down,” he said kindly, the sort of way that wasn’t an order but couldn’t be disobeyed, either. Descry sat, and Ghastly crouched by the chair. “Now look at me.”

Wordlessly Descry shook his head.

“Then again, maybe you shouldn’t put him on display,” Master Pleasant mused, and Descry jumped a little as the nobleman prodded his arm. “He can barely talk. He’s obviously defective.”

“Skulduggery, so help me—”

“What? Hopeless knows I don’t mean defective because of his _beliefs_ , even though they are, obviously, somewhat misguided. Isn’t that right, Hopeless?”

He wasn’t precisely wrong. He was bemused by the idea that a sorcerer might still believe in the Almighty, but no more than he would be bemused by any sorcerer’s insistence on believing in the Faceless Ones; he was secure and confident in his lack of faith, so much so that he didn’t see the point in believing in anything but himself. Yet, at the same time, he was intrigued by the idea that a sorcerer might still adhere to the tenets the magical community had so overwhelmingly rejected.

That was the problem. It wasn’t Master Pleasant who believed Descry was defective, and Descry was unable to answer without revealing things he had never articulated or was sure he wanted to. So the expectant pause dragged on, until finally Master Pleasant said, “Ah. But _you_ believe you’re defective.”

It wasn’t a question, and so Descry didn’t answer it, but part of him didn’t know how to. Master Pleasant was nowhere near a mind-reader himself, yet Descry had never before met someone so observant as to give such a convincing illusion of it.

The pause dragged on just long enough to turn awkward. Then Master Pleasant said, “Well, I hope you have a list of Mevolent’s prospective allies.”

“Yes, sir.” Descry reached under his cloak for the folded parchment of names and held them out.

“Don’t call me sir.”

This was almost the same conversation Descry had had with Meritorious so long ago, enough that his head rose slightly in some faint aspect of amusement—though not enough to actually look Master Pleasant in the face. “What shall I call you?”

“Skulduggery,” said Master Pleasant. “Call me Skulduggery. It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mister Hopeless.”


	2. Meritorious's shadow

Ghastly stood patiently beside his father as they stood at the door to Eachan Meritorious’s townhouse. He had never actually met the man, though he’d seen him from a distance those few times, when he was much younger, that his mother took him to the landsmeet. But he knew _of_ him, and not just because the various rumours which sorcerers passed around their small communities. Mostly, what Ghastly remembered of Meritorious was that his mother respected him. A lot. There weren’t many who could say that of Mistress Aoife.

Add to that Hopeless’s indignation and defensiveness on the man’s behalf, and Ghastly had to admit he was curious. He didn’t usually care about politics, but if a _mind-reader_ was willing to follow Meritorious blindly then maybe the things he had to say bore thinking about.

The door opened and Ghastly was mildly surprised to find someone other than Hopeless behind it. This man had the particular look of someone with a tendency to think too much of themselves while feeling they weren’t given enough credit. It was something in the eyes and the lines around his mouth, and the straightness of his back, and no matter what Skulduggery claimed, Ghastly had known how to recognise men like that long before he’d met the detective.

“Yes?”

Father bowed. “Masters Ardan and Bespoke to see Lord Meritorious.”

The real tell, Father had always said, was how they reacted to his accent. The major-domo looked down at him and nothing changed in the supercilious impassiveness of his face. So he was either very controlled—unlikely, given how his manner revealed himself—or he considered himself above such petty considerations as nationality.

Those men were the most dangerous, Father told him. They were the ones who had no loyalties to man, country or God—or anyone but themselves. Ghastly wouldn’t have thought Meritorious would hire someone like that for his household, but there it was. The major-domo looked over Ardan at Ghastly, standing a few steps behind with his shoulders just slightly hunched and the rolls of fabric under his arms. With his head lowered, it was impossible to see his scars in the shadow cast by his hood.

 _“Don’t walk like you’re ashamed,”_ Mother had always said. _“Not when you have nothing to be ashamed about.”_

Ghastly still did anyway. It made people more comfortable, if he pretended to be the big dumb son. And it was fun to see the surprise on their faces when they realised he wasn’t. (That part, he _did_ blame on Skulduggery.)

“I see,” said the major-domo with an edge of dismissiveness, and turned. “Follow me. Remove your shoes before entering.”

Father glanced behind him at Ghastly with a flicker of a wink and very carefully wiped his boots before removing them and leaving them by the doorstep. Ghastly handed over his packages and then very carefully did the same before taking them back, wondering if this was Mother’s influence on her friend. She’d spent over a century travelling in Asia. She’d brought a few customs to Ireland with her.

That was actually how she’d met Father—on the overland journey back. And that was nearly fifty years ago now. Master Ardan was getting on in years. His hair had been all grey for nearly a decade, and his face was lined, and there was a particular caution to his stride and movements that Ghastly knew was caused by arthritis. But the thing that really made it sink in, the part that Ghastly could not fail to see no matter how much he tried, was how physically gentle his mother was with him. Mistress Aoife wasn’t gentle with anyone she didn’t need to be.

Master Ardan was only mortal. He didn’t have much time left. That was why Ghastly had been living at the shop for the last two years. That was why he was assisting his father with commissions Ardan ought to have been able to handle on his own. Most days, Ghastly could pretend to himself it was because he still had something to learn, but they both knew it wasn’t the truth.

The major-domo led them inside the very nicely furnished townhouse and up the stairs to Meritorious’s chambers. He raised his fist to knock on the door when Meritorious called out from inside, “Bring them in, Tallow, there’s a good fellow.”

Annoyance flickered in Tallow’s expression and he dropped his hand to the knob to enter. “Masters Ardan and Bespoke, sir,” he announced unnecessarily, ushering them into a room which was, in Ghastly’s opinion, far more tastefully furnished than most noblemen’s chambers. It was also, he noticed, strangely arranged. The furniture was all at the sides of the room, leaving the middle free. Tallow asked, “Shall I have the mail for you after?”

“Descry already brought it in,” Meritorious said. Ghastly saw, with interest, that the annoyance was more pronounced this time. “Later, Tallow, thank you.”

Without a word, but with very compressed lips, Tallow bowed and withdrew, and Ghastly turned toward the room at large. Meritorious looked irritable and resigned at once, and actually had his mail in hand and on the small fold-out desk, where he was sorting through it. The window was open, letting in the breeze and the scent of honeysuckle on the eaves.

“You were right,” he said without looking up, lifting a letter. “Look at what I just found. I _wondered_ what I’d done to insult him so badly he’d refuse to even send a note. If I’m lucky, he won’t be too offended by my lack of a reply to accept an apology.”

He didn’t sound particularly surprised, or explain who he meant by ‘he’, but it still took a moment for Ghastly to realise why. It also took Hopeless’s acknowledgement of, “Yes, sir,” for Ghastly to pinpoint where he was. Just coming through from the other room, carrying a stool, so quiet that Ghastly didn’t even pick his footfalls on the soft carpet. Father jumped a little. Hopeless put the stool in the centre of the room and then took the letters Meritorious handed to him, three individual bundles.

“I don’t suppose your mother knows a good major-domo?” Meritorious asked, looking up at Ghastly. “I can’t seem to keep hold of one. For some reason, they keep on getting bought off by my rivals. If I didn’t know any better I’d almost think my valet was getting possessive.”

“I’ve no notion what you mean, sir,” Hopeless said quietly and without reproach, taking the letters, tucking them under his arm, and removing the fold-up desk with one hand.

“Of course not,” Meritorious said, now looking amused with his resignation as Hopeless took desk and letters out of the room. “Please, put your things down.” He rose and indicated the desk Hopeless must have cleared earlier in the day, and Ghastly set down the packages. “Master Ardan, I confess I didn’t realise you were Mistress Aoife’s husband until after your son’s name was announced. Someone neglected to tell me.”

The look he shot Hopeless as the redhead re-entered was some combination of amused, affectionate and exasperated.

“My greatest apologies, sir,” Hopeless murmured, pulling out the folding screen against the wall. “It must have slipped my mind.”

“It must have, yes,” Meritorious said dryly, in the tone of someone with access to an inside joke no one else knew. Except that Ghastly did, and he hid a grin under his hood.

“It is of no consequence, sir,” said Father with a bow, and Ghastly could tell by its depth and the twinkle in his eyes that he already liked Meritorious. That made two for two, in Ghastly’s own family. “I did not realise you were my wife’s friend until just last night.”

“Then we’re even,” Meritorious said, “and I can count on you to give an honest opinion, which unfortunately is not so common as I’d like. What have you for me?”

“Master Hopeless implied your new clothes needed to be somewhat unique,” Father said, and Ghastly let their conversation roll over him, heard but without paying undue attention, while he unrolled the base outfits and unpacked their tools. The soft touch on his shoulder made him jump. He glanced up to find Hopeless by his side, and before he knew it his cloak was removed, deftly placed over one of Hopeless’s arms along with Father’s and taken away. Ghastly cast a fleeting look over his shoulder at Meritorious, and ducked his head, feeling oddly exposed.

Out of the corners of his eyes, he tried to keep track of Hopeless. That was the other reason he was here. Hopeless wasn’t anything like any sorcerer Ghastly had ever met before. Leaving aside how remarkable his magic was, there was something about him that felt, for lack of a better description, almost _mortal_. Most mortals went through life with an air of being beaten. By life, by society, by circumstance. They toiled grimly onward because they could do nothing else, but ultimately, found no real purpose.

Hopeless felt like that. Like he had no place trying to raise himself up. He’d practically tried to sink into the wall of the shop, for God’s sake. And the moment he felt he’d said something wrong, he’d flinched. After he’d left, Ghastly and Skulduggery had spent more time talking about Hopeless than his accusation against Mevolent.

Which, Ghastly realised, the man had read the moment Ghastly had had the thought, and immediately he cast his mind out to find some other topic, as if that would stop Hopeless from having heard anything. Ghastly almost missed the flinch. It was only because he’d happened to turn, the first of the base outfits in his arms to take to Father, that he caught the hitch in Hopeless’s movement as he poured tea into three cups on a tray.

Had he done that? Ghastly wondered. Surely if Hopeless were as fragile as that he wouldn’t be any—he could hear him. Sewing. Outfits. Colours.

This time, Ghastly was looking for the flinch.

 _Is that because of me?_ he asked in his head, and immediately felt foolish. But a few moments later Hopeless appeared at his side to wordlessly hold out a teacup, and Ghastly asked, _Was_ _it?_

Briefly Hopeless’s face lifted, but then he aborted the motion and simply nodded without looking Ghastly in the eyes.

Ghastly looked guiltily down at the fabric he was shuffling through. _Sorry._

Hopeless shook his head and then moved off, and Father called for Ghastly’s help, and for half an hour Ghastly didn’t have much time to think about anything other than his job. At least, he didn’t until he realised that Hopeless was moving around them as they worked, cleaning the room and straightening the fabrics for them, and once providing Ghastly with a brush for one of the velvets which had somehow been crushed on the way over two seconds before Ghastly himself realised he even needed the brush.

After that, Ghastly had tried to keep an eye on Hopeless at the same time, and wound up twice having his father call his attention back to where it was supposed to be. He also noticed, when he had the chance, a faint crease around Hopeless’s eyes.

Ghastly was doing something to hurt Hopeless. He just wasn’t sure what. He hadn’t seemed to be doing the same in the shop, though possibly that was because of shock. It was hard to tell what he could be doing wrong when it was so hard to remember the man was there, and the longer the tailoring session went on, the more uncomfortable Ghastly became, and the more acute the lines around Hopeless’s eyes.

“Weather-proofed, you say?” Meritorious was asking with obvious intrigue, fingering the sleeve of the doublet he was wearing. “How? With all due respect, you are not a sorcerer.”

“I am not,” Father acknowledged with a bow, “but sigils are sigils, regardless of their writer. We sew sigils into the lining of such outfits. You may apply water to the cloth, if you would like a demonstration.”

Father was fond of this ‘demonstration’. It usually wound up with a wet spot on the carpet. Ghastly turned to get a towel to lay down and found Hopeless behind him, quietly holding out a bucket. Ghastly jumped, reminded himself that Hopeless existed, then took the bucket, and arranged it under Meritorious’s hand moments before the older sorcerer condensed water over the cloth. The liquid ran down the sleeve as if it was marble, dripping into the bucket. Ghastly ignored his pleased exclamation to turn around, and glimpsed Hopeless exiting the room into the parlour next door.

Ghastly glanced at his father and Meritorious. They were both engrossed in a conversation involving the warded sleeve. They wouldn’t need him for a few minutes, surely, so he hurried across the room and through the door, conscious that he was technically not supposed to be anywhere but Meritorious’s parlour.

Hopeless turned as he entered, and there was a definite tightness around his eyes.

“What am I doing wrong?” Ghastly asked.

“Nothing you have no right to be doing,” Hopeless said, his voice a little strained and his gaze not moving higher than Ghastly’s collar.

“I’m doing _something_ ,” Ghastly insisted. “I wasn’t hurting you in the shop, but I am now. What is it?”

Hopeless shook his head almost violently. “It’s nothing. Please.”

The plea made Ghastly pause. Maybe he was making it worse by trying to ask.

 _And maybe Hopeless has been horribly maligned by life and society and needs to be strong-armed a bit,_ said the little voice in his head which sounded like Skulduggery. Ghastly sighed. “If you tell me, I can work on not doing it.”

“You have a right to be doing what you’re doing,” Hopeless repeated. He ducked his head and picked up a small towel, and hurried past Ghastly toward the next room. Without thinking Ghastly reached out to take his arm. Hopeless flinched, harder than he had at any other time, but instead of pulling away he froze.

Flushing, Ghastly let him go. “Right or not doesn’t mean I can’t change whatever I’m doing if it’s causing a problem.”

Hopeless didn’t answer. He just left. Ghastly rubbed his head and followed, and when he reached the desk he silently picked up the tape-measure to put it into his father’s groping hand. Ghastly wasn’t sure either Father or Meritorious had noticed he and Hopeless had even left the room, they were so busy talking. Ghastly had to wonder why his mother hadn’t introduced them much earlier.

Then he had to wonder if Hopeless knew why.

Then he told himself sternly to shut up and focus.

Then he glanced around almost shamefully at Hopeless. There wasn’t much of a difference, from what Ghastly could see of the man’s face with him bowed over the tea-tray. Had Hopeless actually spilled anything, or was he just pretending for the sake of escaping Ghastly? The tailor saw the mind-reader swallow hard.

 _What am I doing wrong?_ he asked again, but didn’t expect an answer. The really frustrating part was that Hopeless kept out from under his feet after that—so much that Ghastly barely remembered laying eyes on the man from then up until he was rolling up the fabrics. The moment he remembered, his head jerked a little as he looked up, but Hopeless had already helped Meritorious out of his new outfit into his old and was escaping the room with the new hung carefully over his arm.

“Magnificent,” Meritorious was saying as he emerged from behind the screen, gazing after Hopeless and his newly tailored suit. “Descry was right to ask after you.” Meritorious looked at them and his mouth quirked. “Descry’s usually right about these things.”

 _So why didn’t you believe him when he said Mevolent was staging a coup?_ Ghastly wanted to ask, and didn’t.

“I’m honoured, sir,” said Father with a little bow. “Please do feel free to call upon us. It would be my pleasure to tailor suits for you.”

“It’s my pleasure to advertise for you by wearing them,” Meritorious answered just as Hopeless reappeared, silent and almost unseen, behind him. Ghastly wouldn’t have noticed he was there if he hadn’t been looking for him specifically. Wordlessly Hopeless brought Ghastly’s coat to him, but Hopeless didn’t look Ghastly in the face as he helped the tailor into it, and stepped away before Ghastly could ask anything.

Tallow entered, and Ghastly wondered when the man had been summoned before remembering that Hopeless could have done it at any point in the last few minutes.

“Show Masters Ardan and Bespoke to the door,” Meritorious said to his major-domo. By then Hopeless had helped Father into his coat, and there was no more opportunity for Ghastly to speak to the mind-reader at all. He gathered up the majority of their things, while Father came to pick up the rest, and then could only glance over his shoulder as they were led out the door, still without any idea as to what he’d been doing wrong.

 

“Whatever gave you the impression you were doing something _wrong_?” Skulduggery asked, watching Ghastly work at his desk. The detective was seated lazily in the plush armchair brought in specifically to stop him from hovering over Ghastly’s shoulder at the table, for all as if he was a king in his own throne-room.

“For one thing, he didn’t look like he was having head-pains until _after_ I got there,” Ghastly pointed out without looking up.

“Exactly what sorts of things were you thinking?” Skulduggery sounded amused, so Ghastly shot him a look.

“Not that sort.”

“What sort am _I_ thinking you were thinking?”

“I’m sure I don’t want to know,” Ghastly muttered, laying down his scissors and shaking out the fabric for the outfit Hopeless hadn’t asked for. They hadn’t measured him, and somehow Ghastly doubted he’d be back to the shop unless there was something desperately important involved, but fortunately Ghastly had an eye for dimensions. Besides which, he needed an excuse to talk to the man directly.

“It’s possible he just had a headache,” Skulduggery pointed out.

“It’s possible,” Ghastly said, “but do you think it’s likely?”

“Not really, no. What _were_ you thinking?”

Ghastly shook his head with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t think it was anything specific. That’s the problem. Mostly, I was focussed on work.”

“And that’s it?”

“Well.” Ghastly frowned down at his swath of fabric, pinning two edges together. “No. I was trying to keep an eye on him as well. It was hard to keep track of him.”

“Of course it was,” Skulduggery told him in that amused tone which would have been unbearably superior if it didn’t contain an edge of bemusement as well, as though Skulduggery couldn’t imagine how Ghastly wasn’t coming to the same conclusions. “He’s a mind-reader _and_ he’s a valet. The second means he’s supposed to be invisible, and the first means he can actually, to all intents and purposes, _be_ invisible.”

Ghastly shot him an exasperated look. “I didn’t realise invisibility was an offshoot of mind-reading.”

“It is if you know precisely where everyone is looking at any given moment in time,” Skulduggery said, and Ghastly stopped and lowered his pins, mentally backtracking to the previous day. He barely remembered seeing Hopeless half the time, but Ghastly only had one pair of eyes. It was entirely possible Hopeless really was just staying out of sight-range unless he needed to be seen.

“Alright,” he admitted reluctantly. “So it’s possible.”

“It’s probably also one of the reasons why Meritorious dismissed his concerns,” Skulduggery said as if Ghastly’s agreement weren’t at all necessary. “It’s difficult to take someone seriously when you view them as part of the scenery. Hopeless does appear to propagate that perception more than most gentlemen’s gentlemen do; I suppose it makes it easier for him to spy on the other clans that way.”

Ghastly winced. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? What else would a prominent clansman like Meritorious be doing with a mind-reading valet?”

Ghastly shook his head and didn’t answer, and went back to working. It just all seemed so ... sordid and unfair. Even knowing that every other clan was scrambling for a political edge in the various ways afforded to them didn’t make him feel any better about it. Even his _mother_ was known to seduce men for the sake of a little information. Come to think of it, that was the first time Ghastly had started to realise she wasn’t perfect, even though he’d found out later that the ‘seduction’ hadn’t consisted of more than a few too many drinks. She wouldn’t betray his father like that.

It still didn’t sit well in his gut, knowing just what people would do for the sake of politics.

Skulduggery regarded him with exasperated amusement and then shook his head. “Alright, but even so. Hopeless deliberately makes sure he’s as unnoticeable as possible, and it’s backfiring.”

“It’s not his fault,” Ghastly objected.

“Of course it’s not his fault,” said Skulduggery. “That’s all he’s been told he’s good for, even by Meritorious.”

“I doubt Meritorious meant it like that,” Ghastly muttered, and then wondered why he was bothering to defend the man. Possibly because both his parents liked him so much. On one hand, Ghastly wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. On the other, _that_ wasn’t sitting well either.

Skulduggery shrugged. “It really doesn’t matter to Hopeless, now, does it?”

“It might,” Ghastly pointed out. “Why else would he stay with him for so long?”

“Fear,” said Skulduggery. “Slaves very rarely want to step outside of what they know, even if what they know is horrible.”

“Slavery, Skulduggery?” Ghastly turned around to raise an eyebrow at his friend. “Now we’re exaggerating just a little, aren’t we?”

“ _We’re_ not,” Skulduggery acknowledged, “but I might be. Not by much, though. Did Hopeless give you any indication at all he can imagine a life outside those walls?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ghastly said calmly, reaching for his scissors. “I barely got to speak to him.”

“And yet,” Skulduggery said, “he did refuse to tell you how you were hurting him, on the basis of not contravening your rights in favour of impacting his.” Ghastly frowned and didn’t answer, and focussed on his tailoring while letting the expectant silence stretch on. After a few moments Skulduggery prompted, “So what were you thinking?”

“I was trying not to,” Ghastly muttered.

“Ah,” said Skulduggery.

“‘Ah’, what?”

“You were trying not to think around a mind-reader you kept forgetting was there, but whom you were trying to keep an eye on,” said Skulduggery. “The important word there being ‘trying’. No wonder you gave him a headache.”

Ghastly shook his head with a frustrated sigh. “So help me, Skulduggery—”

“You were contradicting yourself,” Skulduggery explained. “Trying to maintain a focus on him, while simultaneously not. That kind of ambivalence can be very stressful just to its owner, let alone to a mind-reader who probably isn’t used to having anyone else know about what he can do.” The detective nodded firmly to himself, steepling his fingers before him. “We’re going to have to get him out of there.”

Ghastly stopped his work and stared. “We’re going to have to what?”

“Well, it’s obviously damaging to his mental well-being,” Skulduggery pointed out. “He’d be much better off without all this master-servant business.”

“And helping you with your detective-work?” Ghastly said dryly.

“Obviously. It’s a much better use of his talents.”

“You said you were never going to have a partner again.”

“He can be my consultant,” said Skulduggery, “like you’re my tailor.”

“That’s a change to ‘all this master-servant business’?”

“Of course it is,” Skulduggery said in a tone of utmost affront. “At least I’d pay him.”

“I’m fairly sure Meritorious pays him.”

“Probably not nearly enough.”

“You don’t like Meritorious much, do you?”

“Not especially,” said Skulduggery, and rose, and stretched. “Isn’t that outfit done yet? I wanted to deliver it this afternoon.”

Ghastly picked up a brush and threw it at him, but Skulduggery had already ducked, laughing, through the door.

 

The outfit was finished that afternoon, and in spite of Skulduggery’s insistence Ghastly did _not_ tell him about it. If anyone was going to make the delivery, it would be Ghastly. He had had plenty of time to think over the course of the day, and so far Skulduggery’s hypothesis seemed to have the most potential of being right. Not, of course, that Ghastly would tell him that to his face; his lordliness was difficult to handle without adding to it.

Meritorious had asked Father to tailor him something simpler than what they had the previous day, which was an easier task than Ghastly’s had been; so Ghastly took both completed outfits, carefully packaged, and went to Meritorious’s estate. He had been expecting Tallow to answer the door, and was surprised to find Hopeless behind it instead.

“Master Meritorious is meeting with another,” he murmured without looking Ghastly in the face even while ushering him inside. That, Ghastly thought, was going to get very annoying, very quickly. Hopeless ducked his head in what Ghastly was quickly realising was contrition, and _that_ was going to get very annoying very quickly too.

And then he felt guilty, and said quickly, “That’s alright. I’m here to see you, anyway.”

Then he blinked, because shouldn’t Hopeless know that? He opened his mouth to ask and then closed it again, just in case someone was nearby and overheard, and thought the question was strange. Then he realised that Hopeless was leading him unerringly through the corridor, which meant that he _had_ already known, because he hadn’t even started to lead Ghastly up to Meritorious’s office.

Instead he took Ghastly into the back of the house through the butler’s pantry. It was one of the better-kept pantries Ghastly had seen, with a neat desk against the wall opposite the linen cupboards and serving cabinets, and a row of pigeon-holes flanking it. Some of them were filled. The hollow that would have belonged major-domo was empty and unmarked, but there was a sheen there which suggested a name had been painted over.

“Where’s Tallow?” he asked.

“Master Meritorious released him from service,” Hopeless said quietly, and led him into the busy kitchen and down the servants’ halls.

“Was he stealing mail?”

“Yes. He isn’t the first.”

“Meritorious was worried whoever was sending the letters might be insulted,” said Ghastly, “which indicates it was going on for a while. Why didn’t you warn him earlier?”

Hopeless didn’t answer until they came to a well-kept room which, if Ghastly wasn’t mistaken, was located underneath Meritorious’s chambers. There were three doors, too. One had to be a bathroom, if not a privy, and one had to be a wardrobe. That meant the third concealed a stairwell leading up to Meritorious’s rooms.

Ghastly entered the room and stood there waiting while Hopeless closed the door and indicated the desk. Ghastly laid down his things on the polished wood, and unrolled them. “I brought the linens Father made for Meritorious,” he said, “and something for you, for the next landsmeet.”

“Thank you,” said Hopeless. When Ghastly looked up the man was standing reserved by the exit, still not quite looking Ghastly in the face. As if he didn’t have the right. As if he wasn’t equal.

“I know what I was doing wrong,” Ghastly blurted.

“I know,” said Hopeless.

“Am I doing better now?” He couldn’t be sure. It was hard not to at least _try_ and keep track of the man. Hard to know what he could overhear and not try to hide it. That was one of the things Ghastly had been wrestling with over the course of the day: how to go about handling the situation. In the end the most prudent thing had seemed to be ... well, to stop worrying. It wasn’t easy, but he argued with himself that if Hopeless couldn’t _help_ but read his mind, then Ghastly being deliberately harmful in his mental process was only unnecessary cruelty. Because Skulduggery was right: none of this was Hopeless’s fault at all. He was a victim of circumstance.

Hopeless fingered his sleeve, and ducked his head lower, and Ghastly said, “Talk to me, Hopeless. _I_ can’t read minds.”

He smiled gently at the end of it, to take the edge off his words, though Hopeless wasn’t looking up to see it. The mind-reader smiled a little, though, so maybe something got through. “I’m sorry,” Hopeless said softly. “I’m not used to this.”

“I noticed.” Ghastly leaned against the edge of the table. “Why did you refuse to tell me what I was doing wrong?”

Hopeless made a little motion with his hand. It looked like he’d made to grip something inside his pocket, and then aborted the motion. “For the same reason I didn’t tell Master Meritorious about Tallow. I spy on people all day, every day—on their innermost thoughts and desires. What right do I have to dictate their choices?”

“So you’re saying that Tallow had a right to betray his employer’s trust, just like I had a right to hurt you with how I was thinking?”

“You didn’t mean to,” Hopeless mumbled.

“And that makes it alright?”

“You’d be surprised how much intent softens or hardens the edge of action.”

Ghastly stopped and examined the mind-reader for a few silent moments. Hopeless stared at the wall and said nothing.

“Tallow meant to betray Meritorious,” Ghastly said finally.

“I know,” said Hopeless, “but he might have changed his mind, if given the chance.”

“But he didn’t.”

“He didn’t,” Hopeless agreed, “but he _could_ have. I don’t have the right to take that chance away from him, just because I can see which way he’s likely to turn.”

“But you’ll spy on people for Meritorious?”

Hopeless ducked his head again, fingering his sleeve. Then he curbed the motion and took a deep breath. “I owe him my existence.” Ghastly didn’t mean to, but he snorted loudly his disdain. Hopeless’s head jerked up, just a little. “I do,” he insisted. “I’d be dead now if it weren’t for him—by my own hand, no less.”

“You’re a servant in the household of a man who uses you to do something you obviously don’t particularly enjoy, but doesn’t trust your opinion enough to take it into account when it involves something he’s not prepared to hear.”

“Is that Ghastly Bespoke speaking, or Skulduggery Pleasant?”

That drew Ghastly up short, almost more for Hopeless’s quiet certainty than for the words themselves. “He’s had his influence,” Ghastly said after a moment. “But he’s not quite wrong. There’s so much more you could be doing with yourself.”

“There’s nothing else I _want_ to be doing with myself,” said Hopeless.

“Have you ever stopped to think it over?” This time it was Hopeless who didn’t answer, and Ghastly went on. “Why do you owe Meritorious so much that you’re willing to give him your entire life?”

Hopeless hesitated, and then crossed his arms across himself, hunching back into the wall. “I was raised in a monastery.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Ghastly said without thinking, and cut himself off abruptly with a grimace. Hopeless smiled, though. Sort-of. He didn’t often smile with his mouth—it was more in the eyes.

“Imagine,” he said, “being raised in a monastery of staunch Catholics, each of them knowing that you could read their minds, and each of them convinced that magic is the work of the Devil.”

... Oh. Ghastly didn’t really know how to answer that, so he didn’t, and Hopeless went on. “All I knew of magic was that it was evil. Pure evil. And the things I knew, the things I heard—things no mortal man ought to know. They thought I was a demon. I’d never been out of the monastery walls. I didn’t have any context to even imagine they were wrong.”

“But you’re here now,” Ghastly pointed out.

“The monastery was destroyed by Cromwell’s supporters,” said Hopeless. “I was the only survivor. None of the brothers would listen to me when I told them we’re been betrayed. That was the first time I set foot outside its walls. I had no idea what I was doing, no clue what I was except a monster whose very presence risked damning others.”

“And then Meritorious found you,” Ghastly guessed.

Hopeless nodded. “And then Meritorious found me. I thought I was going to die. I wasn’t exactly opposed to it, either. But he realised what I could do, and the first thing he did once he had was tell me to read his mind.” For the first time since Ghastly had entered the house, Hopeless looked up properly, and there was an old, lingering wonder in his eyes. “My whole life I was told I was a demon in human guise, and then this man came along and told me to read everything he was. _Willingly_. He didn’t think I was evil. He was the only one who didn’t.”

“I don’t think you’re evil,” Ghastly said, a little more defensively than he meant to, and Hopeless smiled that crinkling, gentle smile.

“You’re about a century too late. And I read Meritorious’s mind, remember. He knew that few sorcerers would accept me. And he’s right. Even you tried so hard not to let me read your mind, Ghastly. How would others react, if they knew?”

Ghastly didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. He himself didn’t have many friends, let alone close friends—mostly just a lot of acquaintances. He couldn’t imagine any of them reacting to Hopeless with anything other than a visceral sort of aversion, or worse. This time he was the one who looked down, down at his unscarred hands, tracing his knuckles with his fingers.

“Just so,” Hopeless said quietly.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Ghastly said without looking up.

“I know. I think that’s why you did, even if you didn’t mean it. You were trying so hard not to, and then you were so afraid, and then you _forgot_ , and all those emotions were strong all at once. It’s harder, resisting thoughts about which people feel strongly.”

Now Ghastly did look up, to study Hopeless and his steady gaze, and his casual lean against the wall, and the way his hands were clasped in front of him. “You’ve changed in the last five minutes.”

Hopeless nodded. “I’m borrowing you. And Meritorious, a little. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, but that tends to happen when I’m around someone for a while. And you have to admit, it made the conversation easier.”

“Don’t people notice your bearing changing?”

“I’ve gotten good at pretending.”

“Pretending to be who you really are instead of someone else?”

Hopeless was smiling again. There was something that unnerved Ghastly about that smile. It took a moment for him to figure out that it was the timeless resignation there. As if Hopeless was old, much older than he looked, and had experienced more than even any sorcerer had. Which, of course, he had. “I’m no one,” he said. “I’m everyone. It’s hard to be just one person. It’s all I can do _not_ to be someone who already exists. As you can see, I still haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Ghastly asked a little helplessly, because he’d never heard of any magic like this, to this degree, and when talking with Skulduggery he’d never imagined exactly what it must _mean_. Ghastly had spent years trying to define himself past the scars on his face. Half the time, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d managed it. But to not know who he was? To have the whole of his identity, his thoughts, defined by everyone else, while trying to do the right thing by not stealing who they were just by accident? His mind reeled at the notion.

Skulduggery was probably enjoying the mental exercises.

“Don’t hate me,” said Hopeless.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Then you’re already doing it.”

For a moment there was an unexpectedly comfortable silence. Ghastly examined Hopeless. Hopeless moved off the wall to a stack of folded clothes on his dresser, and began sorting them into his small wardrobe.

“Do you get tired of reading minds?” Ghastly asked suddenly. “For Meritorious, I mean. Don’t you ever wish you could do something else?”

“I don’t know what else I could possibly be doing,” Hopeless admitted.

“Not spying on political rivals, for one.”

“If I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have known about Mevolent.”

Ghastly frowned. “You said you’re borrowing Meritorious now, isn’t that true? Why didn’t you speak to him like this, then? Surely that would have convinced him?”

It was impossible not to be fascinated or convinced by Hopeless’s gentle, gracious certainty. He knew. He wasn’t guessing; he _knew_. For the first time, he wasn’t ashamed about it—although he might well feel guilty about it later, if his previous behaviour was any indication. Surely this would convince Meritorious?

“I can’t do that,” said Hopeless without looking up or stopping in his sorting.

“Why not?”

Hopeless paused with his hands on top of a cloak, and he ran his fingers along the lining. “Because Meritorious doesn’t realise what I can do. He still thinks of me as a lost stray he picked up a century ago. He doesn’t know that I can borrow the courage of others.”

“You’re afraid,” Ghastly murmured, “that if he does, he’ll try to block you, like I did?”

This time Hopeless’s smile was a little wobbly. “I’m afraid that he’ll stop using the best weapon for his cause.”

Ghastly shook his head. “If you were anyone else I’d think you were unbearably arrogant, but it’s hard to call a man that when he keeps shrinking against the walls. I thought Meritorious appreciated you.” He paused. “And I’m not sure it’s a bad thing you stop having to spy on his political rivals, either.”

“He’s entrusted a lot to me,” said Hopeless, “even his own mind. I can’t do anything that might compromise that.”

“Even to convince him that one of his political rivals is a lunatic?”

Hopeless shrugged. “I’m a valet, not a detective. I delegated.”

“Not _just_ a valet,” Ghastly muttered, “and now I’d say you’re borrowing Skulduggery, if he were here for you to borrow.” Hopeless gave him a slightly crooked smile, the exact sheepish smile Skulduggery used on those very, very few times he was sheepish. Ghastly stared. “ _Can_ you borrow people who aren’t there?”

“You know him well,” Hopeless said, glancing down at his laundry and picking up the cloak. “And I met him for long enough to pick up bits and pieces.”

“I think _I’m_ getting a headache,” Ghastly said, rubbing his head.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“You’re not encouraging.”

“I didn’t realise I was meant to be.”

They glanced at each other, and Ghastly had to grin in response to the faint, twinkling mischief in Hopeless’s eyes. For a few seconds Ghastly felt as if he’d known the man for more than just four days, even knowing in the back of his mind that it wasn’t precisely _Hopeless_ he was seeing. Because Hopeless wasn’t just Hopeless, he was everyone whose mind he’d ever read, and that included Ghastly and Skulduggery and the manner in which they interacted. It was just as well Ghastly was making an effort not to think about it too hard, or his headache would probably be worse.

Then Hopeless looked away, up at the ceiling, and put down the shirt he’d just picked up. “I have to go. They’ll need me in a minute.”

“I can find my own way out,” Ghastly said, and then hesitated before saying, “Skulduggery will be around as soon as he can.”

“I know,” said Hopeless, “and no, nothing new. But there’s going to be a ball the night after tomorrow. I’ll let you know if I hear anything relevant.”

“For the record,” said Ghastly, rolling up the oilskins in which he’d brought the outfits and putting them under his arm, “it’s rude to answer a question before it’s asked.”

“Skulduggery does it all the time.”

“Exactly.”

Hopeless shot him a look, an eye-crinkling look, and Ghastly smiled back; and then he showed himself out the door, leaving Meritorious’s shadow to attend his master.


	3. Rolling stones

“I’ll take my mail in the lounge today, Descry,” Eachan said, watching his valet in the mirror on his bureau. Descry was picking up articles of clothing, while directing two footmen into removing an armchair just a tad too frayed to be considered acceptable. Eachan really didn’t care, and he knew Descry knew he didn’t care, but there were others among the clans who _would_. Not that many people were allowed in Eachan’s dressing-room, but that was Descry’s job: taking into consideration all things Eachan hadn’t, and making sure they were no longer considerations.

“Very good, sir,” Descry said quietly, just as if he didn’t already know quite what Eachan was going to ask. And that was Eachan’s consideration: making sure Descry was protected. That meant pretending Descry wasn’t a mind-reader whenever there was someone else in the room. “Shall I bring you a list of interested parties as well?”

Eachan wondered if every man’s valet were so efficient a secretary, on top of valet, butler and spy, and couldn’t imagine having one that was not. “Yes,” he said. “How many are there?”

“Four. Thursday may be the best date for interviews, sir. You ought to be able to fit all of them in-between your other appointments.”

Which would give Eachan the evening to ask Descry if any of them were a risk, make his choice and draft an acceptance letter. Not that the first interview ever quite helped, because those adversaries who kept buying his major-domos were now amply aware it did no good to do so before they were hired, and had thus taken to waiting until after the fact.

 _Which begs the question, my old friend,_ thought Eachan, _as to why you didn’t warn me the moment Tallow began accepting bribes._

Descry gave no hint that he’d heard the thought he must have, because Eachan had deliberately broadcast it, but Eachan wasn’t expecting a response regardless. The redhead whisked away Eachan’s velvet coat to be brushed, and Eachan rose from his chair, straightening the line of his cuffs unnecessarily. Master Ardan really was a magnificent tailor.

He made his way downstairs and took his breakfast in the lounge, in front of the largest window opening out onto the street. It let in as much of the sunlight as was to be had in Dublin, and in particular on days that the sun was awake it filled the room with a cosy sort of light and a mahogany scent from the furniture. Today was one of those days, so Eachan chose to answer his mail on the fold-out desk. It was Sunday. He had nowhere in particular to be and nowhere he was obliged to go; indeed, by the Christian doctrine he was almost obliged to remain at home.

The first indication that today was not going to be ordinary was the sound of Descry’s disconcerted voice from the hallway. One couldn’t precisely call it _raised_ , because Descry didn’t raise his voice, but it was carrying enough that Eachan heard it from upstairs (his lounge being on the first floor, nearly directly opposite the stairwell). He put down his pen. The maid come to take his tray paused and looked with startle in the direction of the door.

Descry Hopeless was never disconcerted. Ever. Eachan amused himself for a moment wondering what the girl must think, being raised as a member of a family who had served him for nearly a century—ever since Descry had hired her great-grandfather as his first major-domo, in fact. Her name was Priscilla. As long as she had been alive, she had known magic existed, that she didn’t have any, that her family’s employer did and that her employer’s valet did as well. As long as she had been alive, she had never known Descry Hopeless to be anything other than quietly imperturbable.

“—now, Descry, you should know me well enough by now to know that sort of excuse couldn’t possibly work. Where did you say he was again?”

“I didn’t,” said Descry, sounding firm and unsure at once. Descry, unsure? How strange. And that wasn’t even the first strange thing. Eachan had never seen Descry interact with anyone outside the household except for business reasons, and those transactions were always swift and polite. Yet here, this man professed to _know_ him, and for an implied length of time as well. Eachan sat back in his chair, one hand still on the letter he had been writing, and watched the door.

There was a pause, and then the man with the fabulously smooth voice spoke again. “You’ve gotten better. You gave me absolutely no hints as to where your master is this time, which is more than I can say for your conduct downstairs. However, I already know he’s in the lounge-room.”

“The open window.”

“Of course. Where else would the master of a household be on a day like this? Do excuse me.”

“No. Master Meritorious has elected not to be disturbed today.”

“I grant you, Descry, that you may be older than I, and possibly stronger in the arm after all that time picking up after people—”

There was no disdain in those words; in fact there was a noticeable lack of it. Yet the words themselves indicated disdain. That meant that the voice’s owner, while not disdaining servant’s work as most nobles did, nevertheless disdained Descry’s part in it. Very curious indeed.

“—however, I am still taller, and slightly more solidly built, and do believe me when I say that I will be able to gain entrance whether you wish it or not.”

“And then you will be ejected from the building for causing physical harm upon one of its residents,” said Descry with that quiet, firm authority which made nearly anyone obey it. Even Eachan had caught himself doing so on occasion.

The man with the velvet voice only laughed. “There is that, yes. However, the door is open, and if I’m not mistaken our voices are carrying, and I do believe we have aroused interest. Is that not so, Master Meritorious?”

This last bid was carried further than the rest, a deliberate address to someone not in the room. Eachan couldn’t deny it: he was intrigued. So he rose and went to the door and looked out, and saw Descry blocking the top of the stairs with his body. On the step below stood a young man nearly as tall as Eachan himself, with brown hair and sharp green eyes that were, currently, twinkling with amusement.

“Thank you, Descry, you may let him through,” said Eachan, and while Descry didn’t slump, because he never slumped, some of the tension escaped from his back all at once. He stepped aside and bowed.

“Master Meritorious, Detective Skulduggery Pleasant,” he said quietly. It wasn’t precisely a standard announcement, but Eachan never quite stood on those sorts of things unless he absolutely had to. Besides, he recognised the name.

“Ah, the detective,” he said with a smile. “I have heard of you.” Detective Pleasant bowed more shallowly than Descry had, using his hat to flourish. The twinkle was still present in his eyes, but there was no evidence of a smile, so the twinkle was more a matter of confidence and character than humour.

“Master Meritorious, hello. Is that pudding I smell? It’s heavenly.”

“It is,” Eachan agreed. “Shall I have Priscilla bring up a bowl? Priscilla.” He turned his head enough to indicate to the maid the order, and she murmured and bowed, and took the used tray with her to fetch a new.

“Oh, there’s no need for that, I won’t be staying long,” said Detective Pleasant as she passed. “In fact, we needn’t even retire to your lounge, or office, or boudoir, or wherever you prefer to take your visitors.”

“That depends on the type of visitor,” Eachan said dryly, and was interested to see a flicker of a smile quickly erased. “How may I serve you, Detective Pleasant?”

Detective. _Detective_. Eachan had to admit, he was surprised that Descry had taken such measures. Then again, Descry never did anything halfway; Eachan should have expected that he would give his quest its due. And it was a quest, of a sort, one that Eachan was perfectly content to let his valet have. Descry had been his employee for well over a century, and he still had a disturbing lack of assertiveness. Perhaps this would encourage him outward—or so Eachan hoped.

 _And what if he’s right?_ asked a whisper of a doubt, quickly dismissed. Every clansman had their agendas and their beliefs, but not even Descry could see so deeply into the hearts of men. Not with the sorts of subterfuges he claimed were occurring. There would be more physical or behavioural evidence, and there simply wasn’t any. What it did make clear was how often Eachan had demanded Descry spy on others, with hardly so much as a holiday, if he was beginning to see that sort of conspiracy where there was none.

“There’s a carnival setting up in the Grange of Baldoyle,” said Detective Pleasant. “I was hoping you could spare use of your valet long enough for me to steal him away for a day of frivolities and fun.”

Yes. Yes, perfect. Eachan let his smile deepen. This was _just_ what Descry needed: someone who understood his propensities to withdraw, and who was willing to pull him out of his shell. Eachan couldn’t remember Descry ever accepting a day off. He had stopped offering somewhere around the turn of the century, if he recalled. “Of course,” he said. “I would like him back no later than the hour past nightfall, if you please, but do feel free to have the reign of him.”

He was rewarded with a faintly startled blink, and then Detective Pleasant said slowly, “I admit, I was expecting to have to argue.”

Eachan shrugged. “It’s become clear to me that my valet has not had a holiday in quite a while, and as such, is very much in need of one. However, he seems to dislike _accepting_ any, and I have quite thrown up my hands trying to force him to go on one. I would welcome assistance.”

“It _is_ my job to render assistance,” said Detective Pleasant thoughtfully, as if it hadn’t previously occurred to him. He nodded firmly. “Very well. I will take your valet for a day.”

“Sir—” Descry didn’t quite step forward, but he shifted almost as if he meant to before stopping, without quite looking either of them in the eye. It took a lot before that happened. Even still, there was something very close to disconcert in the lines of his face. “Sir, if I may—”

“You may go and have a wonderful time,” Eachan said firmly. _I realise it’s counter-intuitive to force you into a holiday, Descry, but you’re not escaping a day off this time, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind._

“But—”

“No buts,” said Eachan. “You run a household wonderfully, but we can do without you for just one day, I’m sure. Please, Detective Pleasant, do take him. Just be gentle.”

This time he was certain of the smile, no matter how quickly Detective Pleasant tried to suppress it.

“I’m always gentle,” he said, and stepped up onto the landing at last only to take Descry’s shoulder and turn him toward the stairs in the sort of cheerful fashion that was nearly impossible to resist. “Come along, Descry. Don’t worry; we’ll pick up Ghastly from the shop before we leave. You don’t have to be _alone_ with me all day.”

If Descry weren’t such a serene man, Eachan rather thought he would have cast a forlorn look behind him. As it is, he quietly allowed himself to be led away, resignation visible in every line in his back, while Eachan permitted himself to grin after them.

 

Eachan’s satisfaction lasted until past midday, primarily because he spent most of the morning ensconced in his favourite armchair with a good book and the sunlight from the window. Then clouds overtook the sun until he was roused from his reading enough to realise he was hungry. He looked automatically to the tea-table and blinked at its emptiness, and wondered why Descry hadn’t brought something up, and then realised that Descry was some miles north at a carnival. Of course he wasn’t here to alert the kitchen early that Eachan would want something to eat before lunch.

That didn’t erase his satisfaction. It made him shake his head and chuckle, and then he pulled the rope for the bell and went back to his book.

Half an hour later he was still hungry, and no one had arrived in answer to the bell, and Eachan found himself in the unexpected position of knocking on the door to the butler’s pantry. When John, the second footman, answered, he did so with a hassled and then surprised expression of a man who had been taking a much-earned rest, and was suddenly obliged to rise again.

“Master Meritorious,” he exclaimed, and bowed, and his hand raised to his neck in an embarrassed sort of way that did not in the least bit hide the fact he’d untied his cravat.

“Rest easy, John,” Eachan said with a bemused smile. He wondered when he’d last had to knock on the pantry door. He couldn’t remember ever having done so. “I _was_ rather hoping for a snack before lunch, but as it seems to be nearly lunch already, I was merely wondering whether the bell for the lounge-room is quite in working order, as I pulled it half an hour ago and have yet to see a response.”

That was the only thing he could imagine would be wrong. His staff were all hand-picked or raised in his household: they would not simply ignore a summons in such a way, unless the means by which he summoned them went unheard. (Thinking on it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to _use_ most of the bells in the house, either.)

John’s expression froze into a combination of startle, dread, dawning horror and bemusement. “I—will attend to that immediately, Master Meritorious. I will also have one of the maids bring up a cake to tide you over.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Eachan said. “It’s almost half-past the hour already. Lunch can’t be far off.”

John hesitated. “It’s … going to be a while longer, Master Meritorious. It’s the ham you wanted, you see. We don’t have any.”

Eachan blinked. “We don’t?”

“No, sir. Sean usually picks them up from his pa’s, but Sunday is his day of rest. Mister Hopeless offered to bring one back as he came home from Mass, but—”

The man wasn’t quite mumbling, but his gaze was cast down and he very clearly was trying to avoid laying responsibility where it was due. Eachan rubbed his head and withheld a groan. “But I gave him an unexpected day off,” he finished, and grimaced. “And I didn’t give him a chance to warn anyone, either, so I suppose none of you knew until after he was supposed to return from Mass and didn’t. Would it help if I satisfied myself without the ham, or has someone already left to amend my oversight?”

“I just came back, sir,” John admitted. That explained why he was looking so harried. In a rush, at midday, in the markets—Eachan made a mental note to give the poor man a few dedicated hours off tomorrow. “But lunch will be delayed, I am afraid, so I will have someone bring up a cake for you and attend to that bell.”

“Perhaps _all_ the bells,” said Eachan dryly, and turned to go back upstairs.

He was just finishing lunch, at nearly three o’clock, when there came a frightful shriek and a wail, and a pair of thudding feet. Eachan carefully put down his teacup, wiped uselessly at the wet spot on his vest, and rose to find out exactly what was causing the caterwauling when a little body shot through the door and almost slammed into him. Eachan reached down and took the boy’s arm, and heaved him up onto his hip in an awkward, if unbroken, motion. Ruefully he thought that it had been too long since he’d picked up a child.

“Hush,” he said gently, flicking the boy’s nose with one finger. He—his name was Conner—was a robust, sandy-haired lad who visited nearly every Sunday; he belonged to Margaret’s family. She was the head maid, in a house which needed relative few maids, given there was no lady. The boy was her nephew, the son of her younger sister who had managed to marry the third son of a well-off merchant.

Conner screwed up his face and opened his mouth, and Eachan put a hand over his mouth before he could, just as Priscilla and John appeared at the door, both looking rather ruffled. Conner wailed some more, but the sound was muffled, so he wriggled as well, and Eachan nearly dropped him.

“Whatever was the cause of this?” he asked, and wondered if bemusement was to be the emotion of the day. Conner was something of a spoiled child, as many wealthy children tended to be early on, but he didn’t recall Conner being so to this degree. Then again, he was a regular visitor here—possibly familiarity was breeding contempt. At home, Conner would have been allowed in the front of the house as well as the back, and in his mind, there may be no reason he couldn’t do the same in Eachan’s house. Still, Eachan was surprised. Usually Margaret had better control of her nephew than that.

Priscilla was holding her cap. John was rubbing his head. They both looked at one another, and then down at the floor, and then finally Priscilla said in a small voice, “He didn’t get his chocolate, sir.”

“I wasn’t aware we had any,” Eachan said. He, himself, wasn’t particularly fond of chocolate, which meant there was very rarely any in the house, unless bought for one of the other children out of the staff’s own wage.

“Mister Hopeless always brings some back after Mass on the weekends Conner is going to visit,” John explained as gently as he could, and Eachan sighed, absently bouncing Conner on his hip. At least he hadn’t forgotten that much, and Conner was only four—young enough that the sensation was enough to calm him down a little.

“Where’s Margaret?” he asked. Another round of sidelong glances. Eachan shook his head. “Never mind. Priscilla, you have the care of him?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Eachan shook his head and managed a wry smile. “I am getting the impression that I’ve rather upset the internal balance of the household,” he said. Since Conner had calmed down enough to cease screaming and running, if not looking sulky, Eachan put him down and put his hand firmly in Priscilla’s. The boy was canny enough to realise that the man who’d just been holding him was the master of the house, and to remember his manners enough not to object when Priscilla led him back downstairs.

“John, a moment,” Eachan said when the footman made to follow, and sat a little heavily in his armchair. “Be truthful,” he said, sitting back and looking up. “How badly _have_ I upset the internal balance of the household?”

John hesitated, which told Eachan the situation wasn’t nearly as good as Eachan himself had seen it be—and given that he had gone hungry in the morning, and just been assaulting by a tantruming child, that wasn’t particularly good to begin with, even minor though those mishaps were in the relative scheme of things. For most men in his position, they would have been grave oversights worthy of firing a good many members of the staff. “Go on,” Eachan prompted gently. “Speak freely. I know that Descry takes on more than he needs. How much more?”

“Well,” John said finally, “most of the bells were rusted over and need replacing, sir. To be honest, I—” He ducked his head. “I didn’t even know where they were.”

John had been born into Eachan’s employment, same as Priscilla—they were cousins. He was almost thirty, however, and if he hadn’t known where the bells were then it said a great deal about just how much everyone in the house relied upon Descry’s anticipation. Eachan didn’t use the bells. He didn’t need to use the bells.

 _Except now I will need to_ , he thought grimly.

“What else?” he asked.

“There’s Mrs Sheldon,” John said, staring down at the floor with his hands behind his back. Mrs Sheldon was their head cook. “It’s Sunday. Most of the kitchen staff are having their days off.”

“I remember,” said Eachan.

“So no one’s checked the spice-cabinet, sir. It’s nearly empty. Mrs Sheldon has been in a fine temper all morning.”

Eachan frowned. “I grant you I am not entirely versed in the workings of my own staff, but that does seem like an oversight you all would have fixed long ago.”

“Except that it’s Sunday,” John tried to explain. Eachan blinked at him. “We’re working on a skeleton staff, sir.”

They were, and Eachan knew that, because he was the one who had made it known that any of his staff who wished to have a day off on Sunday were allowed it. He may not have been Christian, and he made no pretence of that fact to those whom he employed, but most of his staff was mortal and as such all of them were, and appreciated the chance to visit family and attend church on Sunday. He just didn’t see what that had to do with anything on this particular day, when that had been the policy for years. “But surely the kitchen would have been stocked for the weekend on Friday, or even yesterday.”

“It used to be, but that was Angelica’s job, and then her family moved north, so to visit them she must leave on Friday night to arrive in time to visit at all, and the poor girl was in straights trying to do it all at once, so Mister Hopeless—”

“—makes sure the kitchen is stocked on Sundays,” Eachan finished with a sigh, and had to pinch off his nose, wondering if it were possible to have a delayed-reaction headache to a child screaming.

“He can do it much faster than Angelica can in the evenings, sir. And she’s very fast.”

Of course he could. He cheated. Eachan knew of very few tasks Descry could not complete at speed, let alone at all.

“It that all?” he asked, hoping it was. John shuffled wordlessly. Eachan sighed. “Out with it.”

“It’s Margaret’s joints,” John said, and Eachan sat up. His head maid was barely past thirty, but she had terrible arthritis. It wouldn’t have been too bad this morning, thanks to the relative warmth, but it was no longer morning. The window was long since shut, and a drizzle kept everything damp.

“How is she?” he demanded.

“She had to have a lie-down,” John admitted. “That’s why Priscilla was watching Master Conner—trying to, sir.”

“Has Margaret taken her medicine?” John opened his mouth. Eachan shook his head and held up a hand. “No, don’t. Descry goes to the apothecary on his way home from Mass.” Eachan insisted on using a magical apothecary—their medicines actually worked. He wasn’t sure any of the staff save Descry even knew where it was.

“Yes, sir,” John whispered, and Eachan pressed his hands to his face and took a deep breath. He really should have let Descry talk.

“I have made rather a mess of this,” he muttered, and rose. “Please do get my coat and prepare the curricle, John. I hadn’t meant to leave the house today, but as I’ve been something of a fool, it seems I must make amends.”

The very least he could do was brave the rain to get some medicine for his poor maid’s joints.

 

By nightfall Eachan was very much anticipating Descry’s return. The drizzle had become a downpour soon after his leaving the house. On one hand, it meant the streets had cleared of people; on the other, it meant mud and rain and Eachan was fairly sure his velvet vest was ruined.

The rest of the day hadn’t precisely gone badly, but it still hadn’t precisely gone well. Margaret was off her bed, which is a very great improvement. Mrs Sheldon now had all the spices she had wanted twelve hours ago, which was overdue but at least another improvement. Conner had calmed down after an apology, an explanation as much as a four-year-old could understand, and the promise of a chocolate tomorrow morning if he behaved for the rest of the day. There was a new set of silver bells on the way, commissioned from the smith.

Returning from his unexpected shopping excursion in the rain was a far cry from sitting comfortably in his lounge-room, reading. It was a point at which he needed Descry more than ever. John was second footman for a reason, and he knew his work, but he was no Descry. He couldn’t anticipate Eachan even in a way an ordinary valet could anticipate an employer for whom he had worked for decades.

It wasn’t just that. It was little things. The fact that Eachan’s fold-out desk was still in the lounge, instead of having been moved up to his parlour so he could use it before bed. That his office desk hadn’t been tidied after he’d used it while waiting for lunch. That he had to go downstairs to notify the kitchen staff for supper, because the bells would only arrive tomorrow. That he had to find his dressing-gown instead of having it laid out for him—he didn’t even know where in his wardrobe his dressing-gown was!

They were all such trivial nuisances, but they revealed exactly how much Eachan had been spoiled by Descry. Not that Eachan thought Descry had intended it—oh no; he had simply been doing his job. The trouble was that he could do it so much better than anyone else possibly could.

So when he heard the sound of hooves and the ring of tack, and the creak of wheels on cobblestone, Eachan wasn’t ashamed to admit that he hurried to the window just to make sure the hackney was pulling up in front of his door. He could barely see it through the deepening night and the rain, but the glow of the lantern on its rear marked out its silhouette, and after a moment Eachan spotted three figures escaping from the cabin and making for the safety of the doorway.

Relieved he might have been, but Eachan still wasn’t about to rush downstairs to greet them. He had already asked John to bring them upstairs when they arrived home, so instead Eachan ambled over to the sideboard to pour himself some whiskey and took a seat in his armchair. He heard them coming up the stairs before they came into view.

“—I’m shocked, and stunned, and disappointed.”

“Oh, give it up, Skulduggery.”

“Why? It’s a travesty. A legitimate travesty.”

“You’re just enjoying making Descry blush.”

“I get the impression it doesn’t happen very often. Does that make me special?”

Eachan was chuckling as they came through into the lounge. The first place he looked was at Descry, in his accustomed place a step behind everyone else, and sure enough his cheeks were just faintly red. It could have been mistaken for exertion running through the rain, or the heat of three men in a hackney with the windows drawn, but it wasn’t.

“Don’t start getting ideas,” said Master Bespoke. “Your ego is already too heavy a burden to handle. Good evening, Master Meritorious.”

“Eachan,” said Eachan with a smile as the tailor bowed. Eachan had known his friend’s son was cursed, but he hadn’t quite been prepared the first time he laid eyes on the man; since then, he had made it a very firm point to look Master Bespoke in the eyes wherever he could, no matter what his instinct said. Descry surreptitiously took Master Bespoke’s cloak out of his hand while he was in the middle of the bow, and then took Detective Pleasant’s as well. “What, precisely, has my valet done which has set you all a-flutter?”

“He can’t ride,” said Detective Pleasant, refusing to give Descry his hat and throwing himself into one of the chairs. He stretched out his feet so he could condense the water out of his boots. Eachan watched with interest. Not all Elementals bothered to learn much control over water. Pleasant’s reputation, so far, was accurate.

Then his words sank in and Eachan blinked. “He can’t—ah. I admit, I assumed you’d take a hackney.”

“We had planned to use my mother’s carriage,” Master Bespoke admitted, sitting gingerly in another chair and wringing the water out of his own clothes, making it evaporate into the air with a wave of his hand. He was also more versatile a sorcerer than many Elementals became, though Eachan wasn’t surprised; Ghastly Bespoke was, after all, Mistress Aoife’s son.

“Except that someone forgot to bring it to the shop this morning,” said Detective Pleasant.

“My mother was using it,” Master Bespoke protested. “It wasn’t there to take.”

“So we had to use some of her horses instead,” Detective Pleasant continued in a fashion that belied the fact Master Bespoke had interrupted at all. “And it turns out that your valet can’t ride.”

“I know,” Eachan said.

“A valet being unable to ride seems like an oversight a good employer might want to amend.”

“I tried,” Eachan said dryly, watching Descry duck his head with embarrassment as he fussed over the cloaks. Ghastly reached out a hand and dried them for him, and the redhead murmured his gratitude. “I took pity on him after the twentieth time he wound up in the mud. It hasn’t been such an inconvenience, truly.”

“Was it really twenty times?” Detective Pleasant asked.

“Would you care to answer that, Descry?” Eachan asked his valet. Wordlessly Descry shook his head, and Eachan chuckled. “Riding mishaps aside, how was your day?”

“It was—” Descry hesitated. “Eventful.”

“And that is as much as I’m going to get out of him,” Eachan lamented with a shake of his head, sitting back in his chair.

“How was _your_ day?” asked Master Bespoke, and then he added apologetically, “We did steal him out from under you. Though that was not—” He shot a glare at Detective Pleasant. “—my idea.”

Eachan thought of missed brunches, and misplaced hams, and missing spices, and lack of chocolates, and rusted bells. He smiled wryly. “Eventful.”

“Eventful?” Detective Pleasant tilted his head in an amused but curious manner—a manner which seemed rather knowing. “Here Descry would have had me believe that you were using your Sunday for a day of rest and relaxation.”

“That was the plan,” Eachan said dryly. “However, you will have to borrow my valet next Friday, instead of Sunday. Sunday, apparently, is _not_ the best time to steal him for a day of frivolity and fun.”

“Sir—”

“Descry, unless you have any intent of warning me about hams, or bells, or spices, or chocolates, I’m not going to let you object to having a regular day off,” Eachan said, and then paused. “Unless it is to suggest a more convenient day.” Descry hesitated, which meant that Friday was a perfectly acceptable day and he was simply trying to figure out how to wriggle out of a regular holiday he didn’t want without lying or being impolite. Eachan seized the opportunity to turn back to Detective Pleasant. “Friday weekly,” he said.

“Excellent,” said Detective Pleasant, sprawling back in his armchair as if he owned it and steepling his fingers. “I shall have to change my plans, however. Descry, you’re going to learn to ride. Ghastly, does your mother still have that witless gelding?”

“Dane is not witless,” said Master Bespoke. “You just don’t like anything from which you can’t get a rise. But he is a good horse for a beginner.”

“Perhaps you’ll do better than I,” said Eachan. “The only horses I had on which to train him were a stallion and a mare just out of fillyhood. Neither were particularly good teachers.”

“It’s settled, then,” said Pleasant. “Riding lessons for Descry next Friday.”

“As you please, Detective Pleasant,” Descry said quietly.

“Skulduggery.”

“Master Bespoke—”

“Ghastly,” said Master Bespoke in the tone of someone who had already made the correction more than once. It was a tone that matched Pleasant’s exactly.

“—Ghastly, our head maid’s nephew’s fourth birthday is in a few weeks. She would like to give him his own suit. Would you mind terribly if—”

“If I tailored it for her?” Master Bespoke interrupted, and smiled, and rose. “Not at all. Does she have his measurements, or is he here now?”

“He’s downstairs,” said Descry. “We should be able to catch him before bed.”

“Lead the way.”

Descry left with two cloaks over his arm, and Master Bespoke followed with a slight duck of his head which did not at all hide his scars, and then Eachan and Detective Pleasant were left in surprisingly comfortable silence. Eachan had wanted to speak to Detective Pleasant alone, though he would not have minded if Ghastly Bespoke were there also; but since Margaret did want a suit commissioned for Conner, the excuse was a good one.

“What did you want to speak to me about?” Detective Pleasant asked after a moment, and Eachan glanced at him in mild surprise, and then chuckled.

“Your reputation _is_ well-earned. How did you know?”

“Hopeless contrived to get Ghastly out of the room,” said Detective Pleasant.

Eachan frowned. That wasn’t a leap anyone could possibly make on the basis of a commission alone. Not unless—

Eachan went very still. The only way one could make that intuitive leap was if they knew Descry could somehow know that Eachan wanted to see Pleasant alone. And the only way Pleasant could know that was if Descry had told him. He couldn’t have figured it out. Descry was far too good at hiding for that.

“I confess,” he said at last, “I didn’t expect him to go quite so far as that.”

Pleasant tilted his head in the exact same manner he had before—the one both curious and knowing. It was in his eyes, the curiosity. The faint upward curve of his mouth, the knowing. “So far as what?”

Eachan looked him in the eye and hoped he was right. “So far as telling you that he’s a mind-reader.”

Pleasant didn’t answer for a moment. The clock ticked. Then the detective nodded. “Yes, he did. He led with that, in fact. To be honest, the most pressing question I’ve had since then is ‘why didn’t you believe him’? Particularly since it’s clear now that you _want_ him to investigate.”

This conversation, Eachan decided, warranted another drink. He rose and went to the sideboard, and poured them both some whiskey, and brought one of them back to Pleasant. The detective accepted the glass, sitting forward in his chair. Business-like. Good.

“Detective Pleasant, when I first met Descry he was a terrified monk who begged me to kill him quickly,” Eachan said, taking back his seat. “He had no concept of magic as an institution. He believed he was, literally, a demon. His monastery was destroyed. I offered him a place and a purpose, and he has repaid my kindness a hundredfold. But when he came to me with his concerns about Mevolent, it became clear to me just how much of him I have asked, and for how long.”

“How so?” asked Detective Pleasant.

“Because even Descry has limits,” said Eachan. “When he first truly used his power consciously, he almost lost himself inside my mind. People have layers, Detective Pleasant. His power isn’t as simple as reading everything at once. Someone like Mevolent, a nobleman sorcerer, would have layers upon layers, and the only way Descry could have got past them all to his heart would be to lose himself, which he hasn’t. So he can’t have read Mevolent that deeply.”

“Instead you think he’s overworked,” said Detective Pleasant, “and making up conspiracies where there are none.”

Eachan stared through the closed window at the water making tracks down its panes. “I don’t blame him,” he said. “I can only blame myself. I turned him into my spy: that’s _all_ I gave to him. Is it any wonder that he has taken it so well to heart that he sees plots where there aren’t any? I promised I would protect him, and where his mind’s health is concerned I have failed. And that is why I am coming to you.”

“That’s why you let _him_ come to me,” corrected Pleasant. “You want him to investigate because you’re hoping it will break him out of his shell.”

“He deserves more than to be an extension of my goals,” Eachan said simply.

“I’m not arguing. But he knows what you intend. He must.”

“Of course he does,” said Eachan. “It’s been in my waking mind ever since he came to me about Mevolent. But I cannot help him, Skulduggery. I’m his employer. Even though we came from the same stock, our social differences are too ingrained in his mind to surmount. I can’t teach him to be my equal when he has spent a lifetime as my shadow.” Eachan shifted, meeting Pleasant’s sharp green eyes. “But you can.”

“You do know I was born a nobleman?” Pleasant asked, a trace of amusement in his voice.

“So was Master Bespoke,” Eachan pointed out, “and he works as a craftsman. He was also born to a sorcerer, while you were born to mortals—if my information is correct?”

“It is.”

“Then between you, you have more than enough perspective to help Descry become his own man.”

They regarded each other for a few moments in silence. The clock chimed the hour. The rain pattered against the eaves and sill. A horseman passed by on the street outside with a muffled jangle of tack.

“I confess,” said Detective Pleasant finally, “you’re not at all what I expected.”

“I can imagine what sort of impression you must have been getting,” Eachan said with a wry smile.

“Not a particularly good one,” Pleasant admitted, and then drained his glass, put it down and got to his feet, picking up his hat. “Very well, Eachan. On Friday. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d better go find Ghastly before he starts sewing outfits for all of your staff.”

“On Friday,” Eachan echoed as Detective Pleasant sketched a quick bow. Then something occurred and he added, “And if you please, _try_ not to get caught. It would be awkward for me to have to explain why my valet hired you to investigate a clansman.”

Detective Pleasant shot him an amused glance over his shoulder, one with twinkling green eyes. He arranged his hat just so on his head and strode out, calling after himself, “I never get caught.”


	4. Turn and turn about

The ball was a whirlwind of colour. The chandeliers overhead glittered, bright but not blinding. Looking down on the floor from the balcony, they lit up every piece of jewellery underneath until the dancers looked like a rainbow gliding across marble. Liliya Artemis plucked a wine-glass from a passing servant’s tray and tried not to be too bored.

It wasn’t that she minded balls. In fact, she enjoyed balls. But this was a mortal ball, and as exciting as they had once been to a young woman barely into her season, it was rather less exciting now that she was quite a few decades older and had attended _magical_ balls. Fortunately, she was old enough that no one connected her to the young lady she had once been, given the time in-between. Unfortunately … she was still so very bored.

She wished Meritorious had attended. He was one of the few sorcerers who had an interest in mortal events, and he always had something to say that was worth listening to.

Oh well. The ball wasn’t going to get any more fun if she stayed on the balcony and sulked. Liliya picked up her gown and made her way downstairs, and managed to pass another hour by catching up with the descendants of the people she’d once known. The never-ending question—‘Will they recognise me?’—made the interactions a touch more exciting.

Liliya was actually beginning to think she could salvage the evening when she saw _him_. Skulduggery Pleasant. Unfortunately, he saw her at the same time, and before she could turn to find someone with whom to dance he had already swanned up with that stupidly charming smile on his stupidly handsome face.

“Miss Artemis, fancy meeting you here,” he exclaimed.

“Mister Pleasant,” Liliya greeted him politely but with that edge of coolness which any man who was even remotely aware of anything other than himself would notice. _Detective_ Pleasant either didn’t notice, or didn’t care; if he didn’t notice then he was a puffed-up fool, and if he did then he was a chauvinistic boor. Neither was appealing, pretty face or no pretty face.

_If only he didn’t have such beautiful eyes,_ she thought. _Such beautiful eyes are utterly wasted on a man like him._

“Oh my, aren’t you handsome,” exclaimed one of the matronly ladies to whom Liliya had been talking. They were _almost_ of an age, if ‘almost’ included twice the years. Liliya didn’t look it. The matron did. Pleasant gave the woman a blinding smile, and she fanned herself with a twinkle in her eyes in that shameless way only older-looking women could manage without being considered hussies. Liliya turned to go. The musicians finished one song and began another, and Liliya cursed them for their timing.

“Ah, excellent.” Pleasant held out his hand toward her. “May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

“Oh, go on, dear,” said the nameless matron, taking Liliya’s glass. “Don’t let this one get away. If only I were twenty years younger.”

_You_ are _twenty years younger,_ Liliya thought sourly, _and then some_. She took Pleasant’s hand and didn’t smile as she allowed him to lead her onto the dance-floor.

“And here I thought I might have some trouble getting you all to myself,” Pleasant said with one of those small smiles that made his eyes dance with amusement and satisfaction. Liliya hated that smile. It made him look particularly attractive. “Given how quickly you left last time.”

“Last time?” she repeated, and smiled back, deliberately slow and bright. She knew from experience that when she smiled like that, he was always distracted for just a beat or two. It wasn’t much, but where Skulduggery Pleasant was concerned, it was still an achievement. She considered it fair play: he was too handsome to be fair, so it was his own fault if he found her too fair to concentrate. “Last time, I left you spluttering.”

His eyes flickered. The song’s introduction drew to a close. “Nonsense. I don’t splutter.”

Then they were unable to talk for some moments, being obliged to join the whisk of movement Liliya had been watching just an hour before. When they met again, Liliya felt a weight on the tip of her toes and narrowed her eyes. Was that deliberate?

“You like to _pretend_ you don’t splutter,” she corrected.

“You abandoned the argument before I could reciprocate,” he countered. “It’s hardly my fault I had nothing to say when you forfeited.”

They parted again, and Liliya took the opportunity to roll her eyes unseen—not that she cared if he noticed. Forfeit? He treated their arguments like a game. He was so young; not much older than the matron they had both left by the wall. Young, and arrogant, and foolish.

They met again in the row, and Liliya grit her teeth, and said in a low voice, “You’re doing that on purpose.”

He blinked at her. “Doing what?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, owing to the fact that he spun her, but the moment she was faced with him again she said, “Do you expect me to believe you’re _not_ doing that on purpose?”

He looked at her in an admirable facsimile of bemusement, spun her off, brought her back, trod on her toes for the fourth time inside a minute.

“I think you must be imagining things,” he said. If she weren’t such a lady Liliya might have hit him, and didn’t mind lingering on the urge. It wasn’t enough that the whole of society looked down on her for being a woman; she would not countenance being dismissed by another sorcerer, let alone one younger than she.

When they came face-to-face again she looked him straight in his pretty eyes and said in a low voice husky enough to be full of sharp edges: “You are treading on my toes.”

He blinked. “Ah. I thought that was your gown.”

Another sweep away, and Liliya had to resist the unexpected urge to laugh. He thought he’d been treading on her _gown_ , and he considered that an acceptable alternative? He was such a man. For all his airs, it was moments like these that revealed how quickly he’d left his family’s household. No true gentleman would have mistaken a lady’s toes for her gown, or been foolish enough to admit it.

“No,” she said firmly, “that is _not_ my gown. And it is, by the by, a _new_ gown, and these are _new_ shoes.”

They were interrupted again, and when he brought her back in he didn’t step on her toes. He was, however, too far back, and that set her off balance, and it was only due to the fact Liliya knew this dance so very well that she didn’t stumble the next step. When they were faced with one another again she sighed. “You don’t know how to dance, do you?”

“Of course I know how to dance,” he objected.

“Not _well_.” At last, something the great detective couldn’t do. It was almost cute, in a clumsy puppy sort of way. She actually felt the urge to smile at him. They were swept away from each other, she was whirled by another gentleman, and by the time she met with Pleasant again he was wearing the other smile she hated. The roguish lopsided one that made his eyes sparkle.

“Would you care to teach me?”

_Not on your life, or mine,_ she thought. She knew it; he’d been putting it on. The moment the song ended she stepped back to offer him a curtsey, straightened, and then moved out of the crowd. He was following her. Of course he was following her. He had no notion of personal space. She snagged a glass from a passing servant and took a larger mouthful than was strictly polite, and didn’t care. She reached one of the pot-plants and turned to face him, and felt better for the plant’s whisper at her back. Not that she could use it, surrounded by mortals as she was, but it made her feel more secure to know the plant was there.

She didn’t like men who didn’t know when to stop.

“Mister Pleasant,” she said firmly, “I have danced with you, and now if you please, I would like to be left alone.”

He paused. He didn’t look stunned. He didn’t look anything, in fact; he was wearing what she called his ‘thinking’ expression. It was an impassive expression, accompanied with a very slight tilt of his head, which made her feel like an insect under glass. She didn’t particularly like _that_ feeling, either, but she stood up tall and looked him in the eye. “That seems unlikely,” he said, “given that you’re currently attending a party, and that you were holding a conversation quite easily before I asked you to dance. But then again, I _am_ quite overwhelming, I know.”

“Mister Pleasant—” Liliya bit her tongue and put down her glass on the nearest table. “Mister Pleasant, you are an insufferable arse, and I am leaving now. Good evening.”

She brushed past him and strode for the ballroom’s doors. Well, that had been a fantastic waste of a night.

 

Liliya opened the door and stepped quickly inside, shaking rain off her umbrella and coat. Her footsteps echoed in the hall in a manner which had once been quite intimidating, but now was only comforting. There was a distance between her and the rest of the world, here. Once, these doors had been open to the world. Now they were tall and shut, and the halls were empty.

As she liked them. This estate had never been hers, anyway. The townhouse in Dublin was hers, and that’s where she lived year-round; but on occasion, she wanted the solitude of the estate. She wasn’t the only one.

“Kenspeckle?” she called, shrugging off her coat and hanging it and the umbrella on the stand beside the door while still clutching her package. The patter of rain on the roof echoed, nearly drowning out her footsteps as she moved forward. She’d be lucky if he heard her, with this din.

She stopped opposite the ballroom and dining-room doors, beside one of the pot-plants. When she first let Kenspeckle stay a few years ago, he had barely left the guest-room. Now, he had taken over most of the bedrooms and, on the occasion he needed a large space for his experiments, the public areas downstairs—though as far as she knew, he rarely left the house. It had been too long since she had visited to say for sure what he might be doing, or what sort of room he might need, and the estate was too large to simply go wandering about.

Fortunately, she didn’t need to. She closed her eyes and breathed out, and felt for the pollen in the air. Elementals could use air to sense. She used this. So long as there were plants in most of the rooms in a house, she could tell whether there was anything moving nearby them.

Kenspeckle was in one of the rooms he had set aside for research involving liquids. Liliya made her way upstairs and down the hall to find him. The door was open, but she knocked before entering. She kept on very few staff, except to maintain the gardens and the house to the bare minimum required, and wasn’t sure just how often Kenspeckle let them see him. Best to warn him he was about to be inflicted with someone else’s presence.

The inventor was bent over one of his tables, mixing liquids. Liliya wrinkled her nose but stepped inside and laid her package down on the nearest clean table. Kenspeckle barely glanced up.

“Dear me, whatever is that?”

“I wasn’t certain how much you’d had to eat tonight,” she said, finding a stool and bringing it closer. “Let alone this week.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

Liliya smiled slightly. “Sausage rolls.”

Kenspeckle paused and then grunted. “Can’t get my fingers greasy.”

“Of course not,” she said, perching on the stool and arranging her skirts, and then unrolling the package. “You can’t possibly risk the conduct of your experiments due to greasy fingers.”

“I knew there was a reason I fostered you,” said Kenspeckle. “You understand me.”

“To be fair, by that point I was altogether too old to need fostering.” Liliya divided up the sausage rolls and chose a piece to bite into it.

“One would think no one fed you at that party,” Kenspeckle grumbled.

Liliya swallowed. “I would have eaten more,” she said, “but I was overcome with a weak stomach.”

“Ah. Pleasant was there.”

Liliya had just taken another bite and her mouth was full, so she grunted in a way just as unladylike as if she’d spoken anyway.

“And what scintillating conversation did your detective provide this time?”

“Hot air,” Liliya muttered, “as usual. _And_ he kept stepping on my toes.”

“The cad.”

“You’re mocking me,” Liliya accused, and Kenspeckle lifted his head enough to raise his eyebrow at her.

“Am I?”

“Quite. If only you’d meet the man you’d realise why I find him so insufferable.”

“My dear, from what you’ve said, if I met the man I’m quite sure a murder would—” Something flickered across his face and he returned his attention to the mixing tubes without finishing his sentence. Liliya didn’t press. She had known Kenspeckle Grouse peripherally for quite a while; he had been one of her mentors when she was young. It wasn’t until much later that they actually became friends—of a sort. Kenspeckle Grouse was brilliant. Brilliant, driven, intolerant of fools. She had always been fascinated with his laboratory and his work, but a little afraid of his disdain for everyone else.

Then, one day three years ago, he had simply vanished. He could never suffer assistants, so when she went to his house she found it in dire need of a good clean, and Kenspeckle himself nowhere to be found—not until she found him in the wine cellar, in weeks-old clothes and with bloodshot eyes, and a dozen empty caskets.

When she’d asked him what he’d been doing down there, he only answered, “It’s the only place in the whole house I can’t hear anyone pounding on the bloody door.”

So she’d offered to let him stay the estate, where no one would bother him in the least.

She still didn’t know just how he’d wound up in his cellar with his experiments smashed to bits upstairs. He’d refused to go back to his house, and in the end Liliya had been the one to hire a cleaning-lady and sublet the property. But every now and then he would say something, or start to say something, and then he would go blank and quiet. By now, Liliya could guess what might have happened. She wondered who died. She never dared to ask.

“At least if it did he would, for once, be correct to claim he was the first one there,” Liliya said dryly. “Regardless of his role in the matter.”

Kenspeckle grunted, peering down into the tubes without answer. From experience, Liliya knew it was an absent assent to being talked-at. He didn’t mind company while he was working, as long as it didn’t demand his attention. There was one topic in particular on which Liliya could speak without requiring response. Well, actually, there were many, but only one had been stepping on her toes earlier that night.

“He was doing it deliberately,” she continued after another bite, swinging her legs as though she was a much younger girl.

Kenspeckle raised his head to peer at her disapprovingly. “Murdering people?”

“Stepping on my toes,” Liliya explained, lifting an eyebrow in a ‘really now’ fashion. “He pretended to have no idea what I was talking about, and then he tried to claim he thought he was treading on my dress. As if that makes things any better.”

“As I said before: the cad.” Kenspeckle lowered his head again. “You’ve had men step on your delicate toes before.”

“None of them were Skulduggery Pleasant.”

“What, pray tell, makes his execution of the crime such a crime?”

“The fact that he was doing it _deliberately_ , and then claiming otherwise.”

“Whyever would he do that?”

Liliya glared at him, and said nothing. She simply glared until he looked up, vaguely confused, and saw her expression, and chuckled. “You are doing nothing to endear yourself, Grouse,” she said coldly.

He reached out to stroke the back of her hand with his knuckles. “Forgive me, my dear. I’m an old man, after all.”

“I won’t be dismissed simply for being a _woman_.”

“I have constantly found you impossible to _dismiss_ , I assure you.”

“If Skulduggery Pleasant thinks he can do what he likes with me and then pretend I’m a silly little creature unaware of what is real and what is fabricated, I will personally find a hot branding iron and—”

“Now is that the sort of language a young lady of birth ought to be using?” Liliya snorted and bit angrily into a sausage roll. Kenspeckle put down a vial and picked up another to measure it. “Quite apart from the fact that a young noblewoman such as yourself has no need for such banal threats, has it occurred to you that he is playing the fool precisely because he enjoys watching you fire up?”

“It’s … occurred,” she admitted.

“And that, quite possibly, you allow him to fire you up because you enjoy watching him become smug?”

“Because I—I beg your pardon?”

“There’s no need to beg,” said Kenspeckle, lifting two vials to measure them against the light. “It’s simply that you’re far too intelligent a woman to allow a man to fire you up so easily unless you wanted him to.”

Liliya opened her mouth, closed it again, and refused to splutter like a fish while she tried to figure out whether that was a compliment or an insult. “I _don’t_ want him to.”

“You don’t find him attractive?”

Liliya rolled her eyes. “I said no such thing. He is very handsome, I grant you, and he has beautiful eyes, and if you push I will even admit that when he smiles he sets my lady-parts all a-tingle—”

“I knew it was a mistake to introduce you to Lady Aoife,” Kenspeckle muttered, setting down the vials very suddenly and going red at the ears, and picking up another two vials to compare.

“— _however_ ,” Liliya continued pointedly, suppressing a grin, “being physically attracted to a man and _liking_ him are two very different things.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No, because you’re a man, and men are raised to believe physical attraction and love are mutually inclusive.”

Kenspeckle looked up at her with an expression crossed between amusement and exasperation. “Be fair,” he said. “Most men don’t even believe that love exists, let alone that it can enter into the same equation.”

“True,” Liliya admitted with a grimace. “My late unlamented husband is a perfect example of that.”

“Your late unlamented husband was a fool.”

“He was mortal,” said Liliya, and suddenly felt tired. “And therefore ignorant.”

“He knew about magic,” Kenspeckle said, pulling a case nearer to him and sorting the vials. “He should have been intelligent enough to realise that he was playing with fire.”

“I gave him reason to believe the fire was out.”

“Yes, and that was rather silly of you. Though,” he added quickly with a glance over his shoulder, “understandable, to be sure.”

Liliya just smiled and shook her head. “That marriage went nowhere I wanted it to be, Kenspeckle. I wish things hadn’t happened as they had, but I still don’t regret the outcome.”

“Not even your son’s death?” Kenspeckle asked, much more gently than he was with anyone other than her. Liliya looked toward the curtained window, and patiently outwaited the twist of regretful grief in her heart. It had faded in the last several decades. She wasn’t expecting it go away entirely, not for a very long time if at all, but she could handle it fading.

“Except that,” she said quietly.

For a moment there was companionable silence between them. Liliya rolled up the sausage rolls in their paper, to keep the heat in for when Kenspeckle chose to have supper. The rain beat a tattoo on the roof. Glass clinked as Kenspeckle shifted vials around.

“Here.” He picked up two and gave them to her.

“Why, Kenspeckle, you shouldn’t have,” Liliya said dryly. “Whatever is it?”

“Something for you to test for me.”

“I thought that was what assistants were for.”

“If you were my assistant,” Kenspeckle said, “that would solve all your moral quandaries, wouldn’t it?”

Liliya laughed and rose, and patted his cheek. “You’re very flattering, but I did vow to never be under the authority of another man ever again. That, unfortunately, includes you, dear.”

“Ah, yes. Damn your late unlamented husband, once more.” Kenspeckle shook his head and turned around to put the vials away. “He’s ruined a perfectly good assistant for me.”

“What is it I’m testing?” Liliya asked, examining the vials. They looked entirely identical.

“It’s a preventive,” said Kenspeckle, turning. His ears, Liliya noticed, were pink again, and she hid a smile.

“And how, exactly, do you plan for me to test this?” she asked archly, holding it out.

He glared, and the blush on his ears deepened. “While I presume you can find a more direct method, if you by chance choose _not_ to follow in Lady Aoife’s footsteps, you will be able to tell whether it’s performing its intended purpose by the rate of your monthly bleed. Drink a mouthful every day for the week before your bleed, and take notes. If it works, your bleeding should be negligible for the month.”

“And if it isn’t?” Liliya asked, tucking the vials away in the drawstring velvet purse she wore on her wrist.

He shrugged. “Then you’ll probably be poisoned.”

Liliya laughed and kissed his cheek. “You could never poison someone by accident, Kenspeckle.”

Kenspeckle harrumphed as she turned to leave, and called, “If you’re at all unsure, possibly you could ask for some aid testing it.” And then, with the great asperity which meant he was trying to get his own back for the scandalous youngster he had to endure, he added, “Skulduggery Pleasant would oblige, I imagine.”

“Kenspeckle,” said Liliya over her shoulder as she left, “it will be a cold enough day in Hell to freeze the Devil’s balls before I bed Skulduggery Pleasant.”

The very last thing she heard before she descended the steps was Kenspeckle muttering, “ _Language,_ young lady, _language._ ”


	5. Weaving dreams

The carriage stopped with a jolt that made Erskine Ravel bolt awake with a grunt. He blinked blearily around at the carriage’s inside, blatantly ignored the chuckling man opposite him, and rubbed the grit off his face.

“Sleep well?” asked Corrival Deuce, with that damned twinkle in his eyes.

“Not especially,” Erskine muttered, and then yawned.

“What _were_ you doing all—no, never mind.” Corrival shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

“Are you?” Erskine looked at him up and down. Corrival Deuce wasn’t an old man, by sorcerers’ standards; in fact he wasn’t even a middle-aged man. But he was solid, and had a face that aged more quickly than his eyes, mind or body. That, and he was wearing a multi-coloured coat that bordered on being an eyesore. “You might learn something.”

Corrival reached out to cuff him lightly and Erskine ducked. “I don’t need to learn anything from _you_ , arrogant brat,” he said tolerantly, and heaved himself off the seat to exit the carriage, nodding toward the driver holding the door and handing the delighted man a whole shilling.

“It would probably do you some good to have some fun now and then,” Erskine persisted, hopping out of the carriage with a much lighter step and waving cheerily at the driver in the middle of stifling a yawn.

“I know how to have fun you couldn’t imagine,” said Corrival without turning around.

Erskine nodded in satisfaction. “I knew it. So that’s why we’re visiting this ‘old friend’ of yours.”

Behind him, Erskine heard the hackney driver slip as he climbed back onto his cab, curse, and then pull away with a touch more haste than was necessary on the uncrowded street. Corrival rang the doorbell and then turned around to give Erskine a flat look. Erskine smiled winningly, and Corrival grunted. “One day, Ravel, that pretty face of yours is going to get slapped.”

“What makes you think it hasn’t?” Erskine asked. “Not that it _has_ , mind you, but what makes you think some poor deprived lady with astoundingly bad taste hasn’t slapped me yet?”

Corrival’s mouth twitched, and his eyes gleamed. “Who said I thought a woman would be doing it?”

Oh, that was a good one. Erskine’s grin widened. “I knew you had feelings for me, old man.”

The door chose that moment to open, or rather the man behind it chose that moment to open it, and he froze and gaped at them in a very un-butler-like way. “Uh …”

“Oh, there you are,” said Corrival amiably, and looked him up and down. “New to the job, are you? You’ll grow into it. Budge up, lad, and let Eachan know Corrival Deuce—and guest—is here.”

“Yes sir,” stammered the major-domo, but Corrival was already moving into the hall and kicking off his boots. Erskine was too busy laughing to care about the disconcerted looks the major-domo was throwing him as he hurried away.

“Shoes off,” Corrival ordered, stopping Erskine when he would have followed. Erskine threw him an amused look and humoured him by taking off his shoes and setting them neatly by the door. Judging by the rest of the boots in the little alcove, it was an accepted household practice to walk around in stockings. Erskine was assuming that, at least, before Corrival handed him a pair of house-slippers. Erskine shrugged, put them on, and trailed after the older man.

“Why am I here?” he wondered out loud. “I don’t know this man. I certainly don’t need to see the two of you catch up, whatever manner that might take.”

“I thought you enjoyed watching.”

“That depends on what I’m watching. Corrival, I know that this will pain you awfully, but you’re just not my type. In the broadest possible sense.”

Someone gasped and Erskine’s head jerked around in time to catch a vase headed straight for the floor. He straightened up, gave the maid who dropped it a dazzling smile, and handed it back to her. “Here you go. I think you dropped something.”

She blushed and stammered wordlessly, and blushed some more. Then her eyes flickered toward Corrival and some of the blood drained out of her face, and she ducked her head with a curtsey. “Excuse me, my lords, I—I have to work, excuse me—”

She hurried away.

“There you go again,” Corrival said, shaking his head.

“I just smiled at her,” Erskine protested, turning around.

“Yes, and now she’s going to think I’m the Devil,” said Corrival, starting up the stairs.

“Be fair, Deuce, you _are_.”

“If this is how you thwart your rivals, Ravel, someone’s going to bring you up on charges of cheating.”

“I’d have to _have_ rivals before I could cheat to beat them,” Erskine pointed out as they made the stairs to find the major-domo standing wide-eyed by one of the doors in the hall.

“Eachan in his office, then?” Corrival asked, already padding down the hall toward it. “Excellent. Carry on, lad.”

“I knew you had unusual tastes, Corrival,” Erskine said as he came through the door, trying to get unwanted images out of his head, “but this is a bit much, isn’t it?” Corrival stepped aside and crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow at him, and Erskine looked at the tall and very dignified man standing behind the desk. He felt himself blush, and cleared his throat, and bowed. “Master Meritorious, sir. I’m—”

“Erskine Ravel,” said Meritorious, and on second glance he looked to be amused as well as startled. That was something, at least. Enough to make Erskine summon a sheepish smile. “Corrival’s told me about you. A pleasure to meet you, my boy. However, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from such comments in my house in the future.”

Wait. Comments? _Refrain?_ Erskine bristled and opened his mouth, but Meritorious raised his hand and in spite of himself Erskine stopped. “I know you mean no harm by it,” said Meritorious gently, “but while the mortals in this household know of the existence of magic, they find certain other predilections difficult to swallow. This is their home, Master Ravel. I will not have them uncomfortable in their home, or as my employees, particularly not when such talk would be ungentlemanly even when pertaining to a man and a woman.”

His face was red, Erskine knew. He didn’t like that. It didn’t suit him. He didn’t like the way Meritorious made him feel like an errant schoolboy or a mouthy farmer’s lad, either, and had to resist the urge to look down at his feet.

“I’ll—refrain,” he managed, swallowing more words he’d have preferred to use and reminding himself that he had reacted in exactly the same manner at exactly the same kind of remarks, once upon a time. It was easy to forget that, when he’d been making them for upwards of seventy years. That was why he’d started making them in the first place.

“Thank you,” said Meritorious. Erskine jumped at the feel of hands on his shoulders, but instinctively put them back in response to the prompting thumb, and within a second his coat had been whisked away. Erskine craned his head to stare at the redhead in the corner who was quietly folding his and Corrival’s coats over his arm. “Otherwise, please feel free to make yourself at home. I have an extensive library, if you have a taste for literature.”

“Of course,” Erskine agreed, turning back around and trying not to feel unnerved at the fact that he hadn’t even known the redhead was there. He spread his fingers a little to feel the air, and even then, the only movement he could feel was Corrival’s. Either the redhead didn’t breathe, or he knew how to do so without alerting an Elemental. Now _that_ was unnerving.

“Very well,” said Meritorious. “Descry will attend you.”

Erskine opened his mouth to say, ‘If you wanted some time alone, you just had to ask’, then shut it, swallowed the words, and bowed with a little more of a flourish than he usually used. “Until later, Master Meritorious.”

He spun on his heel and let Descry escort him out of the office. He paused just outside it to eavesdrop, but Descry closed the door and his even glance made Erskine shrug and stroll down the hallway with a whistle, trying not to feel slighted. He hadn’t had much of an idea what he was going to do during this visit, but somehow the thought of being dismissed from the relevant conversation hadn’t occurred.

_If Corrival didn’t want me to be here,_ he thought, _then why did he invite me along in the first place?_

It had been a long time since Erskine had needed to be protected, but other than the occasional drink to exchange stories, Corrival usually only took Erskine somewhere if he wanted an opinion or to try and protect him from _something_. Erskine had no idea what that might be, on this occasion. All it had really meant was that he couldn’t sleep in. Now, it also meant that Erskine was likely going to be bored out of his skull.

“What kind of sorcerer hires mortals, anyway?” he muttered, and then glanced to the side, where he … couldn’t see Descry at all. He stopped and whirled, and there Descry was, right in his blind spot. The valet tilted his head slightly. “No offence,” Erskine said slowly, his mouth catching up with what his brain had intended before he’d been startled. “You’re not mortal, are you?”

“No,” said Descry quietly. Erskine was almost surprised. He’d started to assume the man was mute.

“I didn’t think so,” said Erskine, still watching him. “No mortal can be quite that …”

“—um, invisible.” Descry didn’t answer. He just stood there, waiting patiently with Erskine staring at him. Erskine wasn’t even sure what he was thinking himself, except that this household was _strange_ , and then finally came up with, “The library?”

“This way,” said Descry, and turned around to the stairwell, and led Erskine up it. They came out onto the floor which, on most other townhouses, might well have been some kind of attic or extra bedroom-space. Here, it was a tall maze of bookshelves, with skylights between the beams of the ceiling. On sunny days, it must cast the whole room in natural light, but today—like most days—it was overcast by the clouds that obliged Erskine to snap his fingers and send miniature flames around to the candles.

Erskine’s experience with libraries was that they were closed-in and stuffy. This one had plenty of space between the shelves, and overcast sky or not, the windows made it seem larger than it was. There were even armchairs and couches along the walls. Erskine wandered among the cases, admiring the books more than looking for something to read, and only belatedly realised Descry had left. Probably to get rid of the coats.

Meritorious had a fairly eclectic range of tastes in literature. Poems, plays, histories, autobiographies, cartographies—even an impressive range of illustrated Bibles, though Erskine couldn’t imagine why he’d have _those_.

… Except for the fact that the man had mortal servants, but Erskine was having trouble with that thought. Then he had to smile ruefully, because he had been mortal-born himself; it was just the idea that mortals and sorcerers could coexist together peacefully. Well, the mortals were all servants, so he supposed that still said it all. You’d never see a sorcerer being a servant to a mortal—every sorcerer Erskine had met all had trades or were merchants, if they worked at all.

There was one broad shelf in the very back, under the Bibles, with a line of beautifully bound leather journals in it. The covers were even inlaid. Books like that had to be worth a fortune. Erskine slid one out and lifted it in his arms, and turned to find one of the sofas before starting at the sight of Descry laying a tray of tea and cakes onto the table.

“When did you get back?” Erskine demanded.

“Just now,” Descry said in that soft voice.

“Hm.” Erskine eyed him warily. “You’re strange.” He wasn’t even quite sure what it was about the man that made him so strange. It wasn’t the fact he was a valet; Erskine had been tended by footmen before, and probably would again, if they stayed here overnight. It was, Erskine decided after a moment, the fact that Descry did it so _well_ , to the point of seeming invisible or like a Teleporter. It was downright eerie. (Maybe he _was_ a Teleporter. It would explain how he was coming and going so suddenly.)

Descry bowed his head a little and kept it down, which was more subservient than he’d been in the hall, with that steady, pointed gaze. After a moment Erskine shrugged and carried the journal to the sofa. He dropped it on the cushion and looked at it for a moment, and then shook his head. “Where does Meritorious get books like these? I’m not all that fond of books, and even I think they’re beautiful. But they must have cost a fortune, and even sorcerers have only so much money.”

“I made them,” said Descry, and Erskine blinked and looked at him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I made them,” repeated Descry in precisely the same tone, his gaze not once shifting from the wall across from him.

Erskine looked at the book, and ran his fingers over it. “You _made_ this? And you’re still taking work as a valet? Why?”

“I enjoy the work.”

“If you sold just a dozen of these books a month, you could afford a servant of your own.”

“I don’t want a servant of my own.”

“Everyone wants a servant of their own,” said Erskine, and then amended, “Well, no, I don’t, exactly, though it’s nice once in a while—never mind. It’s not like I could afford it, anyway.” He still sold a weaving every now and then, but most of the time he earned his money at the gambling halls, and when he couldn’t afford a good room he seduced a pretty lady. Sometimes he even bedded them, but most of the time, it was just a matter of persuading a landlady to let him stay a few nights in return for a man’s help around the place.

Descry didn’t answer. He just went about serving Erskine his tea. Erskine sat down on the couch and toed off the slippers, and arranged a cushion under his head so he could lie lengthways while reading. He just didn’t expect the book to be in Latin, and spent a minute squinting down at the page before slamming it shut with a sigh. “Should have opened the book first.”

“Allow me.” Descry took the book from him and sat in the armchair opposite, the one with its back to the room.

Erskine frowned. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Master Meritorious asked me to attend you,” Descry said.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean _reading_ to me.”

“I am happy to help in any way I can,” Descry murmured.

“Are you always so—” Accommodating? Spineless? Descry lifted his head and waited patiently for him to finish the sentence, but Erskine wound up sighing and waving a hand, and sinking back into his pillows. “Never mind. Go ahead, if you’re all fired up to ‘attend’ me.”

He was about to ask what the book was about, then decided he didn’t really care. The sofa was divinely comfortable now that he was lying on it, and his body was reminding him that he’d done rather a lot of exercise last night without having much in the way of rest. His muscles were relaxing in that liquid way that made it hard to _want_ to get up again, let alone actually do it. His eyelids were growing heavy, and before he knew it they had actually closed. He could very well have fallen asleep right then and there, except that he couldn’t, because he never could without some sort of background noise; and then he had to wonder suddenly if Corrival had told Meritorious or Descry exactly that, and that was why the valet was now about to read to him.

He vaguely hoped Descry read it in the Latin. At least then there would be no chance of his attention being captured by the subject matter.

He heard the rustle of pages, and then Descry began to speak in the lilting tone of someone very familiar with the language they were speaking. It almost sounded like a song, and Erskine wondered sleepily why a sorcerer would learn a Latin hymn well enough to actually remember it after so long being a sorcerer. The thought segued into the pleasant rhythm of Descry’s words, and that segued into the warm weight of fatigue, and before Erskine knew it he was asleep.

 

When Erskine next came aware, it was slowly, in a drifting manner he always enjoyed, but wasn’t often able to experience. Most of the time he woke up because it was too quiet, or because his partner had stirred and left, or because one of the servants had woken him so _he_ could leave. On this occasion, he woke up to a kind of low hum he couldn’t immediately identify, mostly because he was still half asleep.

He let himself drift in that warm contentment, idly wondering which woman had left him in such a state. It wasn’t until he woke up a bit more that he realised the hum was, in fact, a hum—the kind of absent hum of someone not really paying attention to what they were doing. Then he felt the sofa around him, the softness of the cushion under his head, and registered the unidentifiable scrape of tools.

Erskine opened his eyes and found himself looking across the low table between a sofa and an armchair. On the armchair sat Descry-the-valet, and on the table was a spread of leather and sinew, and a stack of parchment, and a needle thick enough to choke a horse, and a handful of other tools whose names Erskine couldn’t immediately call to mind.

“D’you make the paper and tan the hide too?” he asked groggily, and the hum cut off as Descry looked up.

“The paper,” he said, “but not the hide.”

He shifted some of his things aside to push a tray closer to Erskine’s side of the table. At first Erskine thought it was the same tray as before, but then he saw the steam coming from the teapot and realised this must be a new one. He had good timing.

“How long was I a- a- asleep?” he asked through a yawn, debating whether or not he wanted to be up yet. He didn’t, in particular, but only because he felt comfortable; but he was awake now, so there was no point in pretending. He swung his legs off the couch and sat up, rubbing his mussed hair back down.

“Most of the day,” said Descry quietly, spreading the rectangle of leather across the table. “The sun has set.”

Erskine glanced up. The candles were lit, and a few stars peered through the clouds into the skylight. “Huh.”

He didn’t usually sleep so well for so long without some exercise immediately beforehand. It wasn’t that he was an insomniac; it was simply that he tended to wake up easily unless the conditions were optimal. He wouldn’t have expected they’d be optimal in a stranger’s library, on a sofa, and without a pretty woman at hand, but odd things happened.

With a shrug to loosen his back, Erskine pulled the tray closer. It wasn’t just cakes this time; this time, it was a light meal. He must have missed dinner. Or Corrival and Meritorious had had one separately. Either way, there was food, and the food made him realise how hungry he was, so Erskine wasted no time in taking cutlery to it. Across from him, Descry continued to work, laying the pages carefully in the cover so they would sit properly when he bound them.

Erskine watched as he ate, and when he was done he laid down his cutlery and used the serviette, and blurted out, “Can you make one of those books for me?” Descry blinked and looked at him for a moment, and Erskine seized the pause to develop the brewing idea. “It’s Corrival’s tercentennial this year, and he enjoys cartography. You and Meritorious are well-travelled, aren’t you? Well, no, that doesn’t matter. If you can’t or don’t want to draw maps, I can always get some to put in it. Either way, Corrival would love a beautiful book to put his maps into.”

He realised he was rambling, stopped, and watched Descry expectantly. Descry stared back and then shook his head as if trying to clear the thoughts out of it, and then said, “I can draw maps.”

Oh, good. “That would make it easier,” Erskine said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have to source two different people, then. I’d pay you more, of course, but—”

“Pay me?”

Now the valet sounded downright disconcerted, and Erskine had to stop to give him an incredulous look. “Of course pay you. I’m not about to ask you to make a book as magnificent as _that—”_ He pointed at the mostly-finished book on the table. “—and not pay you. Especially if you’re doing some cartography on top of that. The book alone could fetch a guinea. Is that gold you’re using?”

“Bronze.”

“Close enough. I’d give you _three_ guineas for a good cartography book.” He stopped and considered that. “More, for a _really_ good cartography book. Those things are hard to find.” Especially because the mortal standard of ‘accurate’ was nothing like the sorcerer standard of ‘accurate’. Not even sorcerers had fully mapped the world yet, but they had done so with far more objectivity than mortals had managed. Yet most of them considered hand-making non-magical objects beneath them. If they made something by hand, it was because it needed to be imbued with magic step-by-step.

“I—” Descry hesitated. “I can’t—”

“I won’t tell Meritorious if you won’t,” Erskine said. Though from everything Corrival had said, Meritorious didn’t sound like a man who would force one of his employees not to work for anyone else, especially if it was a trade in which they didn’t often sell.

“That’s not—”

“Then what _is_ the problem?” Erskine demanded. “I’m offering you money for a thing you do well and would probably do anyway in some fashion. Just say ‘yes’, Mr Descry whatever-the-rest-of-your-name-is.”

Descry’s mouth twitched upward, just slightly, and his eyes crinkled with a tentative smile. “Yes?”

“Excellent.” Erskine leaned back in the sofa and yawned, and stretched. “His birthday’s not for another six months. I’ll come back and pick it up around then, how’s that? We can haggle an exact price at that time.”

“Alright,” said Descry softly, and began collecting his tools. “Master Deuce is preparing to leave. Will you be retiring with him, or would you rather stay the night here?”

“With him,” Erskine decided at once. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken up such an offer, but Corrival had paid for his room at the tavern and Erskine wanted to give the old man a piece of his mind besides. He bent to find his house-slippers and pull them on, and then rose with another stretch. Descry rose as well to lead him out, and Erskine followed, snuffing out the candles with a wave of his hand.

Corrival was already waiting at the door with his boots on, talking quietly to Meritorious, as Erskine jumped the last two steps and landed perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet. Corrival looked at him. “What took you so long?”

“It’s not my fault you have no—” Erskine began, and then checked himself with a glance at Meritorious. “I was eating dinner.”

_And conducting an unexpected business transaction,_ he added to himself. He put the slippers into their little nook and slid his feet into his shoes, and turned around to find Descry holding his coat out for him. With a shrug Erskine accepted his help to put it on.

“You’ll look into it?” Meritorious was asking Corrival.

“I’ll do my best,” Corrival promised, “but don’t expect too much. Those folk avoid crowds at the best of times, but even more so now.”

“Still, it’s necessary,” Meritorious said grimly. “There’s only so far we can talk about fixing relations between sorcerers and mortals if we can’t even fix relations between ourselves.”

“I’ll do my best,” Corrival repeated, and put on his hat. “Come along, boy. I’m sure you’ve a place to be tonight, after sleeping all day.”

“I can think of a few,” Erskine said with a wicked grin, following him out onto the damp road and into the waiting hackney. He glanced at the sky and couldn’t see stars, but it was too dark to see clouds either; still, judging by the water in the air, it was likely to rain again. He waited until they were both situated in the hackney, and the driver had indicated to the horses, before speaking. “What was the point of that?”

“Eachan wants me to talk to some werewolves,” Corrival said without looking at him. He drummed his fingers on the armrest, as he did when he was thinking. “They’re being hunted more and more, these days. Sorcerers are taking advantage of mortal fear to wipe out a subset of unfortunates.”

“Then why did _I_ have to be there?” Erskine demanded, and threw up his hands to slump in the seat. “I wasn’t even _there_. I was in the library. Why did you ask me to come with you? You only do that if you want my opinion or are trying to get me out of trouble.”

Now Corrival threw him an amused look. “What makes you think it had anything to do with _you_?”

Erskine frowned. “If not me, then whom?”

“Hopeless,” Corrival said simply, but Erskine only looked at him blankly. “Eachan’s valet. Descry Hopeless. You may have noticed the man’s a bit of a wallflower.”

“He’s growing ivy,” Descry muttered.

“He’s been Eachan’s valet for well over a century, and he’s only just started accepting days off. Eachan’s trying to get him to reach out. He’s made friends, but they’re best friends themselves, so when I said I was meeting with you while we were both in Dublin he suggested I bring you along.”

The hackney’s wheels rattled along the cobblestone, and splashed through a puddle, and Erskine considered this in comfortable silence. He _had_ noticed that Descry—Hopeless?—Descry had been withdrawn. The man had tried to talk him out of paying a well-earned fee, for God’s sake. He’d _read_ to him, a complete stranger, just to make him fall asleep, and then apparently sat with him the whole day. Or at least part of it. He obviously took his duties far too seriously.

With that peculiar rattling thud of a loose stone the hackney pulled up in front of their tavern. Erskine moved fast and opened the door first, but paused before alighting to smile dazzlingly over his shoulder. “Master Deuce, if you wanted to match-make me with another man, all you had to do was ask. I _am_ quite the catch.”

He bounced out and onto the street to grin at the hackney driver’s startled horror and the sound of Corrival’s unwilling laugh behind him.


	6. Roving for purpose

“—so _then_ I told him he had to be ab-so-lute-ly careful because things like that, they pass on, and that’s why we call it ‘passing on’ when we die, because if we’re not careful the how and why of their death will _pass on_ —I swear by Lasair’s Girdle, Anton, the bloke went _green_ and—”

Larrikin’s words broke into laughter and he was obliged to lean on Anton to keep his balance. Anton paused long enough to check the bloom of warmth in his chest, a sort not caused by drink or lust, and then shook him off. Larrikin yelped, slipped in the mud and caught himself upon the wall, and sent a betrayed glance up at Anton.

“Oy. Is that the way you treat a man in dire need of aid? Is that how you treat a _friend_?”

“Yes,” said Anton without looking over, for no reason other than it would make Larrikin squawk.

“How dare you! I’m insulted, Shudder. I demand recompense. I demand _satisfaction_. I—”

“Are you bloody well going to challenge him or not?” said a man at the doorway to the inn for which they were aiming, looking at them with that familiar expression of incredulity, disdain and amusement.

Larrikin straightened and brushed off his clothes, and strode cheerfully past him. “Where would be the fun in that?”

Anton followed while the man was still blinking, shaking back his cloak so the clinging water fell outside the door. It didn’t pay to allow Rover Larrikin to gain too much distance. He had a tendency to accost others. Indeed, as Anton’s eyes adjusted to the illumination inside the inn, he saw Larrikin watching the burliest man in the room.

“No,” said Anton, taking hold of his pack and dragging him toward the innkeeper.

“But Antoooon,” Larrikin whined, pointing at the man. “You could kick his arse with one hand tied behind your back!”

“We’re here to conduct business, not engage in frivolous damage to life or limb for the sake of coin.”

“That’s not what you said the last time.”

Anton shoved him down onto a stool and gave him an admonishing glance. Such glances were never effective, but Larrikin had come to expect them. They made him feel as though he was working hard enough at being a pest. “Last time, we were chased out of the village by a mob,” Anton said. “We have no such luxury today.”

“There’s always the luxury to be chased out of a village.” Larrikin leaned his head back and spun on his stool. It rocked back and forth, and Anton put a foot on one of its lower rungs so Larrikin wouldn’t be flung off and land in someone’s lap. “Antoooon, we need to have some _fun_ between business assignations!”

“One bed,” Anton said to the innkeeper, showing the innkeeper his coin to prove he could afford it and then stowing his meagre funds. Beds cost more than he would have liked, but he didn’t dare move to less expensive inn. It would have given Rover opportunity to get them into strife among those less willing to forgive.

“You forgot the drinks,” Rover protested, pushing himself upright.

“I have enough coin for a bed and dinner, Larrikin. I will not have enough coin for dinner if I buy drinks.”

“ _I_ have enough coin for dinner,” said Larrikin, and Anton looked at him. “Well, I _would_ have coin for dinner if you’d let me go out and have some _fun_.”

“You said you had been contacted privately,” said Anton.

“I have! I was!”

“You said you had been contacted privately,” Anton repeated, “by a wealthy lady who requires your services for her husband’s arthritis.”

“Not my usual realm of expertise, I admit,” said Rover, “but what can I say? I _do_ have talented hands.”

“Rover, if you don’t perform well, we won’t be eating tomorrow.”

“We _would_ if you’d just go and fight somebody so I can make wagers!”

“If you _do_ perform well we will be eating tomorrow, and every day for the next month, without the need to find other work.”

“So does that mean ‘no’ on my wagering your talent?”

_Let me kill him, let me taste his flesh, let me—_

Anton looked at Rover until the Gist’s heat had subsided and Larrikin batted his eyelashes. “I knew I’d seduce you eventually, Shudder.”

“I’m not fighting,” said Anton, very calmly. His chest still felt tight, and hot, and it had backed up his throat. He was very nearly surprised when his words came out even.

“But you’re so _good_ at it,” Rover grumbled, leaning back against the counter and resting his head upon it. “We’ve been starving less in-between my business assignations, aside from that village deciding you were Deuce and chasing us out with pitchforks.”

“If you would conduct yourself with more professionalism, perhaps your services would be secured more often.”

Rover raised a lazy hand and let it flop, and Anton conceded to the resignation in his own tone. Rover’s current line of business ran unnervingly close to his previous line of business. More than once those who called upon his expertise as a ‘pleasure agent’ assumed it referred to physical favours. Declining such assumptions had left Rover’s clientele … limited. That left Anton to ensure they had enough coin to at least eat daily, if not twice or three times daily, and he was far from the only labourer in search of work. Fighting had given them more options.

Fighting was dangerous in ways Anton had nearly forgotten.

“In any case,” Anton said, “we cannot afford to waste this opportunity by causing trouble. If she is as desperate as you say, or at least willing to spend as much coin as it seems, then her good word will be of aid in spreading your business.”

“Indubitably,” said Rover, “but that don’t mean you should stop training your dog while you’re at it.”

Anton felt a stirring of surprise and looked askance at his … companion. Rover was still gazing at the ceiling, swinging his legs as though he were a child. As though he hadn’t just destroyed Anton’s assumption that he, in fact, did not realise why Anton no longer wished to fight for money.

“I don’t have a dog,” Anton said at last.

Larrikin flapped a hand at him impatiently. “Don’t go stupid on me now, Shudder. You’ve got a thing on a leash. It’s bloody well close enough.”

Anton frowned. “If you’ve noticed the leash has grown … somewhat frayed, then why do you still bid me to fight?”

The look Rover gave him then was one he rarely saw: full of impatience and incredulity, as though Anton truly were the fool for not seeing the obvious. “You’re never going to get him properly trained if you keep shying from every little situation that might make him bite, now, are you?”

Before Anton could answer, the innkeeper returned. Larrikin snatched the keys out of his hand with a squeal more suited to a little girl given a rare bit of candy and hopped to his feet, halfway across the room in what seemed an instant. “Hurry up, Shudder, we’ve got lots to do before I’m presentable to the _respectable_ class!”

Anton recovered in only a moment and made to follow, and then stopped to turn to the innkeeper. Before he could consider the benefits or foolishness of such an action, he said, “If anyone comes looking to hire a mercenary for the immediate bounds of Dublin, give them our room-number.”

Then he turned and followed the pathway of incredulous stares Larrikin was leaving in his wake.

 

Shudder didn’t sleep well that night. Rover woke up sometime in the early hours, feeling cold and lonely on his side of the small bed, at once wishing he had a patron and skin crawling at the thought. Although that might have been the bedbugs. The snore someone was producing from the other side of the room wasn’t helpful either. He had rolled over and the first thing he saw was Anton curled around his chest—not in the manner of a man protecting his vital organs, but in the manner of a man trying to keep something in.

Anton, when he slept peacefully, slept on his side and curled around an invisible object. Through a combination of careful prodding and outright cajoling, Rover had manage to learn that Anton had once been the eldest son of ten siblings, and now he imagined Anton cradling a younger brother or sister whenever he was asleep.

This night was different. This night was like the last several nights, in fact. It was like the months and months of nights when Rover had first known him. It was the sleep of a man with a monster inside of him.

Rover watched for some moments, huddled under his blanket and wishing for something thicker. Anton’s fingers clenched on his biceps, and he let out a strained groan. Rover couldn’t tell whether it was the groan of a man striving to keep something in—or the groan of that something trying to get out. Either way, it was a bad sign.

“Move over,” he muttered, shoving at Anton’s shoulder and shuffling under Anton’s blanket. He took Anton’s hand and wrapped his arm around his waist, and curled up against him. Anton’s forehead rested against Rover’s shoulder, and his fingers clutched at Rover’s shirt. Larrikin waited, feeling the trembling tension against his back and trying very hard not to remember the sight of the monster with claws and fangs erupting from Anton’s chest. It wasn’t something to which a person adjusted quickly, especially since Anton tried so hard not to use it.

It took some time. It always took some time. Eventually, Anton’s body relaxed and settled into the protective curl into which Rover had forced him. Rover yawned and closed his eyes, and snuggled deeper into the warmth. Never failed.

 

The first thing Rover knew the next morning was the floor smacking him in the face and the interrupted snort of someone else being woken. He lay there for some moments, stunned, and then rolled over to see Anton tidying their bed. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shoved out. It very likely wouldn’t be the last. He waited another second, and then said pointedly, “Ouch.”

“Share a bed we might be obliged,” said Anton without looking up, “but I do not need your cuddles.”

“Bloody sodomists,” groaned the man on the other side of the room, rolling over and yanking his blanket over his head.

“I was cold,” Rover grumbled, climbing to his feet and rubbing his jaw. “And if you’ve given me a bruise I shan’t be happy. I need to look my _best_ for my patrons.”

“Odd,” said Anton, “given how you offer them every excuse not to look at you.”

“Well, now I’m hurt,” Rover whined, tossing his blanket onto Anton’s neatly folded bedclothes. “You’re hurting me, Shudder. You’re hurting me bad. At least _I_ have work. What are _you_ going to do with your time today?”

“Search for more,” said Anton, straightening to fold Rover’s blanket too. “I left word with the innkeeper that I’m open to mercenary work.”

Rover felt a thrill of surprise and resisted the grin, and turned around in favour of changing his sleeping clothes for something else. “Not much different to letting me wager on you,” he grumbled, muffled through his shirt. “In fact, there’s more chance of taking you away from Dublin. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you wanted to get away from me, Shudder.”

“But of course,” said Anton. “Why would you think otherwise?”

 _Because the first time you shoved me out of the bed I thought you wanted me to leave,_ thought Rover, _and then you followed me, and acted as if it was coincidence we were heading in the same direction, to the very same inn. Because you keep darning my socks, and cobbling my boots, and making enough money for the both of us, and you always let me talk even when it annoys you._

He didn’t say any of that, of course. If he said it out loud, it might ruin everything. It had been a century since he rescued a tavern full of mortals from the Gist, and he was still wary of ruining everything.

Instead he heaved a sigh. “Fiiiine. Love me, leave me, I see how it is.” The man in the other bed swore and got up, looking tired and frazzled, and shuffled out of the room with a slam of the door. Rover grinned at Anton. “I expect you back by no later than midnight, young man. Where’s my bag?” Anton held out the small satchel of oils and Rover snatched it up and shoved his feet into his boots, raking a hand through his hair. “There. All done.”

Anton looked at him, closed his eyes, and sighed. Half an hour later Rover walked out of the inn, his hair freshly trimmed, face freshly shaved and best clothes relatively unwrinkled. Anton left shortly afterward, dressed far less finely and resigning himself to a day of menial, short-lived work worth halfpennies.

 

Rover squinted at the townhouse from across the narrow street. The Pale was a very pretty place, but it was as narrow as the parts of the city at liberty—or worse, being all cramped inside the walls as it was. He’d been there before, of course. It wasn’t exactly guarded as strictly as the law said it was supposed to be, and while he looked out of place, he didn’t look like a villein either.

Oh, well. If he kept loitering, he was sure to be set upon by the Guard. With a shrug Rover crossed the street, tugging on the neckband Anton had forced him to wear. He used the doorknocker, and looked up at the townhouse again. Whoever owned it had a lot of money, because the house was two properties wide instead of one, and was thus the only house on the street that didn’t look sadly squashed against its neighbours. It was plainly appointed on the front, which made it stand out against the other buildings fitted with gleaming brass and flowers battling the on-and-off drizzle, but it had an elegant sort of line to its sills and eaves.

The door opened. Rover gave the maid behind it his best smile, and bowed with a flourish of his cap. “Good morning! Rover Larrikin, here on a mission of mercy pertaining to the life and livelihood of one Lord Ardan.”

The maid, on a second discreet glance from under his brow, was prettily plump with curly hair in a bun, and thankfully lacking a corset to hinder her generous bosom. And, he realised with a start, she was wearing _trousers_. They were well-made, to be sure—panelled at the front, almost as those worn in the Land of the Rising Sun, and thus appearing as a skirt to the ignorant. Yet they were still _trousers_.

What sort of lord and lady allowed their maids to wear trousers? What sort of maid answered the door?

“His title is ‘Master’,” said the maid, looking bemused. Rover was used to that. “Mistress Aoife is the lady of the house. We’re expecting you.”

“Oh, good.” Rover nodded and bounded up the steps, but the maid stopped him at the jamb.

“Mistress Aoife exercises a strict policy of shoelessness within her house,” she explained, pointing to an alcove containing a series of pigeon-holes filled with shoes. A smile spread across Rover’s face, a smile mixed with delight and incredulity. That explained the trousers.

“Your lady’s spent some time in the Orient,” he said, toeing off his boots and shoving them into one of the holes, and using his feet to drag a fitting pair of slippers closer. “I approve muchly, indubitably, yes.”

“I’m sure Mistress Aoife will be glad you do,” said the maid with a sort of frazzled smile which indicated that either Aoife wouldn’t care or the maid was simply overcome with Rover’s charm. Rover fancied it was the latter.

“Of course she will,” Rover agreed, wriggling his toes in the slippers. They were soft, softer than anything he’d worn since … he couldn’t quite think of a time, actually. Even wearing his cleanest socks, it was almost a pity to ruin the wool by putting his dirty feet inside them. “And where is the lady of the house?” He’d waited until just past noon, and even managed to swindle a few pennies—enough for a bite to eat. Surely she’d be out of bed by now.

“In the living-room,” said the maid. “This way.” She bobbed a curtsey and led him through the main hall and up the stairs. Most nobles had their homes richly appointed to show off their wealth. Mistress Aoife’s home was tasteful and gorgeously done in wood and stone, but it lacked the overwhelming finery. Rover liked it. He didn’t feel so terribly out of place, or at least not so much that he felt he had to snivel just to get the job done without being thrown out. He didn’t particularly enjoy snivelling, and he wasn’t terribly good at it anyway.

The living-room was furnished in exactly the same manner as the front-hall: with polished timber built into the windows and fireplace, and the furniture, and rugs so thick Rover could have slept on them. It was a room made for comfort, not for appearance. He was so taken with it that he actually didn’t notice the woman on the floor until she spoke.

“Who’s this, then?”

“Master Rover Larrikin, Mistress,” said the maid with a curtsey. “Here for Master Ardan’s arthritis.”

“Is he? Late bugger, isn’t he?”

Rover looked and didn’t see Aoife until after she bounced up from behind the chaise longue, stretching and cracking her shoulder in a way that made Rover shudder. She was short, and had long hair and a nose that had been broken in the past, and she wore a tunic that barely covered her shoulders, let alone her arms. And _trousers_.

“Shut your mouth before the flies get in,” she said, and Rover snapped it closed. The maid, he was vaguely aware at the corner of his eye, was hiding a grin. Mistress Aoife looked at him from head to toe, hands on her hips. She was sturdy, and strong, and had the sorts of muscles Rover had only seen on people like Anton. And she was a _woman_. A woman whose gaze, he was suddenly very sure, had paused appreciatively on certain very attentive parts of him below his belt.

“Marry me,” he blurted.

“Already married,” she said.

“I can share.”

She grinned, a slow grin that crinkled her eyes and made them sparkle, and by Áine, he was in love. “That’s good to know, Larrikin.” She paused. “Larrikin. Where’s that name from?”

“I made it up,” he said with a shrug.

“What’s it mean?”

He shot her a dazzling smile. “Whatever I want.”*

She laughed, and he revelled in the sound of it. Most ladies laughed quietly, or through false titters which pretended they were delicate little songbirds. Aoife laughed from the belly, and loud. Rover loved listening to real laughter. Sometimes he felt as though he didn’t get enough.

“So you’re a sorcerer then,” she said.

“What gave it away?”

Gods, he loved her smile. “Only a sorcerer would be so unashamed. Or have a name like that.”

“You say that as though there’s something wrong with it,” Rover said with mock offence. “I’m insulted. I’m inclined to turn around and walk away right this very moment. I don’t need to accept this sort of treatment.”

She laughed again and Rover wished he could listen to that sound all day long. “Mary, send someone to fetch Ardan from the shop,” she said to the maid. “And then fetch us some tea and cakes. And maybe some ham and toast as well.” She paused. “In fact, just bring up what’s left from lunch. Master Larrikin here is scrawnier than a lamb on offal.”

Rover opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t find anything to say, and wound up gaping wordlessly at Aoife. Amiably she tapped his chin shut.

“Flies don’t make good eating,” she told him, and went to the armchair and flopped on it with a sigh, stretching out her legs. “Rest your arse, Larrikin.”

This couldn’t be real, Rover thought dizzily as he obeyed, sitting on the chaise longue and still staring at Mistress Aoife. Mistress. _Goddess_. This couldn’t possibly be real. Either he’d been wrong all this time and Heaven existed, or he was in an astoundingly genuine dream, or this was all an elaborate fantasy concocted by Abarta or some other equally mischievous figure. Then he wondered if he would care if it was.

“Alright then,” said Aoife, “what makes you think you can help my husband at all?”

Rover blinked at her for a moment and then shook off his malaise. “Why’d you call me if you didn’t think I could? For that matter, why are you bothering to call him home?”

Aoife shrugged. “Desperation. My usual physician has gone and become a hermit. I know where he is, vaguely, but to be perfectly frank he needed to reconsider some of his life choices, and I’m certainly not going to interrupt him while he’s in the process. Now, from what I heard you label yourself a ‘pleasure agent’.”

He gave her a winsome smile. “In many, many ways.”

She grinned. “I only need one. The person I spoke to was very put out that your services weren’t as they claimed you’d claimed.”

“It’s not my fault people’s thoughts run in certain directions,” Rover grumbled, and then gave in. “I’m a practitioner of anatripsis**, but to put it in terms the average idiot will understand—”

“You have to generalise a little more,” Aoife said, looking amused. “Why don’t you just call yourself a physician?”

“Because I don’t know much about medicine,” said Rover with a shrug.

“You’re not selling yourself very well,” Aoife observed, and Rover felt his cheeks warm. When had he _ever_ been accused of not selling himself well? He couldn’t remember.

“I learned about anatripsis from a courtesan,” he explained, feeling self-conscious and hating it. He hadn’t felt self-conscious about these sorts of things since he was about, oh, thirty. He just didn’t see the point in it. People were going to judge anyway, so why ought he feel bad about the things he couldn’t help?

“Most courtesans don’t call it anatripsis,” Aoife pointed out.

“I was in Greece.”

“If you know enough to call it what it is, you know more about medicine than most idiots styling themselves physicians,” said Aoife, “and you’re honest about your limits, relatively, so I’m inclined to take my chances with you rather than some snake-charmer. Ever handled arthritis?”

“Once or twice,” Rover said, distracted by movement at the door which turned out to be Mary. With a cart. A cart laden with trays of food. Rover stared, and tried not to let his stomach growl too loudly, and failed.

Aoife grinned. “Good. Ardan will be another half-hour at least. In the meantime, tuck in.”

 

Master Ardan took a little over half an hour, which was plenty of time for Rover to have finished off nearly every crumb on his tray. In all honesty he ate more than his stomach could possibly hold, and even felt a touch ill because of it, but he’d rarely been offered so much food in one sitting and wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity. Only an idiot did that when they weren’t sure when their next meal would come.

Aoife, as it turned out, had indeed been to the Orient, including the Land of the Rising Sun and even Tibet—illegally, she claimed, given how deep within China the land actually was. Rover had barely been past Shanghai. Actually, he’d been party to raids in Shanghai, on a Japanese pirate ship, but that still wasn’t nearly as exciting as trekking overland in a country barely any Europeans had seen at all.

That was the point, really. It wasn’t obvious if one didn’t know the signs, and most Europeans had never seen an Oriental before in their lives. Rover had. Aoife had a shadow of the narrowed eyes and the silken-like texture of the hair, and the smooth skin, and the small stature.

“My mother,” she’d explained when he asked. “She dallied with a mortal silk merchant travelling on the Silk Road, and Chinese sorcerers are notoriously isolationistic. Her clan couldn’t accept a baby with outside blood, so she travelled overland in search of fortune elsewhere. I was born on the foot, almost literally. Didn’t even see Europe until I was ten. She married an Irish clansman, another mortal, but they were both killed in the Viking raids. They had their own way of using sorcerers, back then.”

“Vikings were better than the Khans,” Rover muttered with a shudder. “At least they worked _with_ each other. The Khans rode sorcerers like donkeys.” They were the only mortals Rover knew who actually managed to dominate sorcerers.

“You’re older than you look, if you remember the Mongols,” said Aoife, sounding surprised.

“I matured well,” said Rover with a flashing grin.

Aoife laughed again. She did that, Rover noticed, an awful lot—not that he was complaining. Some would say that if they had her money, they’d be laughing too, but it was different. She had money, but she didn’t waste it or use it to prove she was wealthy. She just used it to enjoy life.

“Better than most,” she agreed. Her returning smile was impish, with dimples, and the trailing glance she gave him was brazen in a way he only ever saw on ladies of the night. Even then, that too was different. They used it to woo, a necessary tool of their trade. Aoife was simply enjoying the view. There was interest, but no attempt to follow through.

Rover sighed wistfully. Somehow, that only made things worse. “Just my luck to meet a goddess and find she’s too full of integrity to share.”

“How do you know I’m not a slave to my husband’s passions?” Aoife asked, her smile widening.

“If you’re the type of woman to be slave to anyone’s passions but your own, I’ll eat my slippers. That would be a mighty pity. I’m far too full right now, and eating anything else would make me explode, and then ladies of less integrity will be deprived. That, and these slippers are far too comfortable to put on the inside of me rather than the out.”

The chuckle came from behind him, but Rover had been expecting it. He recognised that sort of heavy tread that had been approaching up the stairs. He put down his tea and turned and swept up into a bow with a flourish, and straightened up to lay gaze upon Master Ardan for the first time.

Ardan was perhaps Rover’s height, and old—old enough that his grey hair had gone a touch wispy, and his face was very lined. Not many people got to be that old; he had to be sixty, or even more. He was thin, but he had strong hands. Tradesman’s hands. Rover liked that. He quite enjoyed tradesmen’s hands.

Aoife rose and came over to take Ardan’s arm, and the fond smile on her lips was the softest thing in the house. She was gentle, too. Far gentler than her previous boisterousness implied. The shine in Ardan’s eyes when he looked back said everything Rover needed to see. It wasn’t often he got to see real love in a married couple. Affection, yes. Tolerance. Camaraderie. Rarely love.

All of a sudden Rover felt as though he was intruding, and he was prepared to look away, but then Aoife led her husband toward the armchair and Rover focussed on the man’s step instead. Slightly hitched—not as severe as Rover had seen, but still enough to indicate arthritis in the knee. The bend of Ardan’s back indicated the same; the sort of bend belonging to a man who leaned over a working table. But the worst, Rover could tell, was in the man’s hands. His knuckles were swollen, and he held them carefully, and didn’t do much more than rest his hand on Aoife’s arm; and she was the one who put her hand in his, rather than the other way around.

Not as bad as it could be, but the man’s days of working for a living were nearly at an end. Or, Rover realised with a start, this could be the day in which they were. That was why they’d contacted him. That was why Aoife wanted a physician.

What a ridiculous thought. Him, a physician. Rover laughed at himself and then turned and picked up his bag. “Right, let me guess,” he said, spinning on his heel. “Your hands are the worst, because you work with them, and you spend most of your time leaning over a table, so it’s in your back too. Standing up or sitting down? Sitting down, I’d wager, prove me wrong.”

He grinned at them as they exchanged glances, Ardan in his armchair and Aoife standing by its side. “I do work seated,” Ardan admitted after a moment. Norman accent. It had been a while since Rover had been to that neck of the woods. “I’m a tailor. It’s most practical.”

“That explains the knee,” Rover said. “That’s the knee you use to kneel while measuring, am I right? Of course I’m right.”

“I like him,” Aoife said, and caressing Ardan’s shoulder with her thumb. “Don’t worry, dear. I know you dislike sharing. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

“Just as well,” Rover scolded, “or you’ll make his injuries worse.”

Aoife laughed. Ardan shook his head, but he was wearing a small smile. “Ah, your soulmate. I should be jealous.”

“I’ll keep my hands to myself too,” Rover promised. “Well, I’ll keep them off Mistress Aoife, at any rate. I can’t promise the same to you.”

“I—” Ardan’s expression ran from shock to discomfort to confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“Larrikin’s a practitioner of anatripsis,” Aoife explained, looking amused and yet shooting Rover a quelling glance.

“Ah.” Ardan’s confusion melted away into vague relief, and he even managed a chuckle. “I ought to have expected that.”

“Oh, possibly,” Larrikin said cheerfully. It was a false sort of cheerful, but he excelled at false cheer. He was an idiot. Just because Aoife didn’t seem the type to mind that sort of thing didn’t mean her mortal husband was nearly as enlightened. He was mortal. They led very short lives lived in fear—not that he could blame them, given the ways in which society worked to enforce the things they dreaded.

Rover scooted forward on the footstool and held out his hands. “I’ll take a look at your knuckles first. They’re the joints that cause you the most pain.”

“I told you I could find you someone who knew what he was doing,” Aoife said, squeezing Ardan’s shoulder. He chuckled again, and put his hands into Rover’s.

“I never doubted you.”

“Yes, you did. You asked when Grouse was returning to the city.”

“I would hardly count that as an expression of doubt.”

“Grouse?” Rover asked. “Your usual physician-in-the-middle-of-a-moral-crisis?”

Aoife laughed. “Usually he’s complaining about being on the end of it, and having to clean it up. Yes, he’s the one. He did an examination a few years back, but Ardan’s pain has worsened since then, and not even sorcerers can cure old age.”

A shadow of sadness crossed her face, and it matched the acceptance in Ardan’s eyes. Rover pretended not to see either of them. Dalliances between mortals and sorcerers were very common. Marriages, much less so, and for this very reason.

“And now he’s gone and left you in the lurch,” said Rover, “and banished you to my tender care. Cad. You should give him a talking-to.” He shook his head sadly, but his words were absent, a distraction. Ardan’s hands were stiff. Rover could tell from the way he held them, without even having to ask. His knuckles were swollen, and there were a myriad of tiny red scars on his fingers. “You tried to work last winter.”

“How can you tell?” Ardan asked, more with innocent fascination than self-deprecation.

Rover smoothed a thumb over a line of pinpricks. “These scars are older, and you’ve more of them than the newer ones. How haven’t you cut off your fingers yet?”

“My son handles the scissors,” Ardan admitted.

“Oh, good.” Rover nodded. “Child labour: best reason to have them.” He laid Ardan’s hands on his lap, and rolled up the man’s breeches on his arthritic leg. Not that there was much need; Ardan’s hands were the worst off, and no matter the state of his knee, there was only one thing Rover could tell them. He didn’t want to tell them. He wasn’t good at giving people bad news. People he didn’t like didn’t react well and sometimes refused to pay him, and people he _did_ like didn’t deserve bad news.

Physicians were supposed to be good at giving people bad news. Rover wasn’t a physician.

“Do you do much kneeling now?” he asked, nudging Ardan to stretch out his leg.

“No,” he said, and added with pride, “My son has an eye for dimensions. He needs only look at a person. Measurements have rarely been necessary for quite a while.”

“Excellent. I hope you’ve given him a good room in the attic. Or maybe the basement. Children these days are all soft in the belly.” They both laughed, far more than Rover felt was warranted. When he looked up they were exchanging the sorts of amused glances owned by those who knew something others didn’t. “Now you’re just keeping secrets,” he grumbled.

“You don’t know our son,” said Aoife. “What do you have to say?”

Bugger. Rover sighed and rolled Ardan’s breeches back down, and sat back, and shook his finger at Ardan. “ _You_ should not be working.”

Ardan’s face fell. It would have been comical, if he hadn’t looked so devastated. A moment later he rallied and said hopefully, “But your magical anatripsis—?”

He didn’t like being a physician, Rover decided. “It doesn’t work like that,” he said as gently as he could. “Anatripsis can help with pain and stiffness, but it can’t make it go away. Your hands are too arthritic. By rights you should have stopped working years ago.”

A fact, he suspected, which Aoife had known and of which she not been able to convince him. Maybe she’d tried. Maybe she’d simply known beforehand that her husband was too stubborn to change.

“But Professor Grouse—” Ardan began.

“I don’t know Grouse,” said Rover. “I know _how_ to grouse, but I don’t know Grouse-the-person, and he hasn’t seen you for a few years. All I can tell you is what it’s like now.” He shrugged helplessly. “You’re not fit to work.” He managed to muster a smile. “Look at it this way. Now you can save your hands for worshipping your goddess.”

That received a very weak smile in response, but it was better than offence, at least. Aoife squeezed Ardan’s shoulder and said, “You said anatripsis can help. How often will he need it? How long will it last?”

“That depends on how much you manage to keep him off his hands,” Rover admitted. “In winter, if it’s very bad, maybe every few days. Ordinarily, once every week. I can help him today, but—”

“You can’t stay for so long,” said Aoife, and managed a smile of her own. “I knew that, when I heard your name. No man who calls himself a rover knows how to settle in one place.”

Rover opened his mouth and then closed it again, and swallowed. He wished he could tell her that wasn’t true, that he _could_ settle, but it was a lie and a stupid one at that. A sorcerer’s name could say everything about a person, if picked right, and Rover’s was one of the more obvious.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Aoife shook her head, squared her shoulders and nodded briskly. “It’s no matter. It just means you’ll have to teach _me_ to do it instead.”

“I’ll have to—what?”

“That’s how it goes,” she said. “You know how to help him, and you can’t stay. So you need to teach me. I’ll pay you, of course, by the hour, for however long it takes for me to master the skills.”

“That might be a week or more,” Rover objected, feeling a little dazed, but Aoife flashed him a grin.

“I’m a quick study. In the meantime, why don’t you do what you need to do today, and I’ll watch, and then we’ll see you tomorrow.”

Rover opened his mouth and shut it, and then cleared his throat. “That depends. Were you planning to settle after you’ve learned what you can, or in increments?”

“I’ll pay you today for the examination and anatripsis,” said Aoife, “and settle later for the training, how’s that?”

It would do, Rover decided. Anton was very good at stretching coin, if Aoife turned out not to be quite as free with her money as they’d been hoping. “That sounds fair.” He winked as he rose. “But I warn you: I’m a _very_ difficult act to follow.”

 

Aoife was, in fact, perfectly capable of keeping up. She didn’t ask questions, which Rover appreciated, but she watched closely and was on hand to assist Ardan upright again afterward. Rover allowed himself to feel smug at the genuine relief on the man’s face.

‘Smug’ wasn’t precisely his emotion when he felt the weight of the purse Aoife gave him. His eyes widened and he peeked in, and spluttered. “Uh—”

“Can’t be hungry for flies again already,” said Aoife, and almost against his will Rover laughed, rather incredulously.

“You said we were settling for the training afterward.”

“We are,” Aoife agreed. “This is for today.”

Rover stared. “How much money do you _have_ , and where do you earn it?”

Aoife smiled. “My stepfather was a wealthy man, with a great many vassals. It’s far more than I need, and I put no price on my husband’s comfort.”

“Does a goddess like you accept other worshippers, perchance?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Aoife as Mary came to them, holding a filled knapsack. “Oh, good.” She took it and pushed it into Rover’s hands, and he almost dropped it due to the unexpected weight.

“What—” He cradled the knapsack.

“Spare ham,” said Aoife. “Don’t think I didn’t see how fast you ate lunch. I don’t want my new physician to expire before I can make use of him.”

Rover spluttered some more, and was still spluttering when Mary ushered him out of the house. He stood on the stoop and glanced down the street, and down at his newly-gotten gains, and suddenly the world seemed a lot brighter than it had that morning. It wasn’t that he finally had the means for three square meals a day for the foreseeable future, although that was nice. It was the reminder that there were, in fact, generous people in the world. He forgot that, from time to time.

Feeling the sudden urge to whistle, Rover hid the purse inside his clothes and slung the knapsack over his shoulder, and ambled down the street, humming a jaunty tune. He tipped his hat at the guards to the Pale and joined the stream of humanity working its way around the streets at liberty, already smirking at the imagining of Anton’s face when he saw just what Rover had earned.

To a given definition of ‘expression’, perhaps, and Anton would immediately stash most of it for a rainy day, but it would still be quite gratifying. But Anton wasn’t in the inn’s commons, so Rover was grinning as he bounded up the stairs toward their room, and unlocked the door with a flourish.

“I’m home,” he sang out, and then stopped. The room was empty, which wasn’t entirely unexpected from the perspective of potential room-mates. Most travellers only used their beds for sleeping and storage. But the beds had been made, and the one that was theirs was bare of possessions save the neat little bundle that belonged to Rover.

He glanced at the bed down the way. Their room-mate’s possessions were still there also, so there was no thieving involved. He ducked his head and looked under their bed, but there was nothing there save a few mice. Rover straightened up again, his heart pounding and with the distinct sensation that he’d been struck in the chest.

Anton was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The word 'larrikin' was historically coined in Australia on the cusp of the twentieth century--which is implied by canon to be about when Larrikin died. Therefore when Larrikin chose his name it would have been meaningless, and his behaviour must have been what gave it its meaning in the Australian consciousness.
> 
> ** Anatripsis was the ancient Greek word for massage; the word 'massage' actually wasn't coined until the late 19th century. There are a number of variants available from other languages, but given Aoife and Larrikin's ages 'anatripsis' seemed the most likely word they'd use.


	7. Shuddering circumstances

Anton’s morning was productive in the most frustrating and useless ways possible. He went from merchant to merchant, but most already had enough labourers. One or two were willing to give him a couple of farthings in exchange for helping unload a cart, enough to break his fast. He tried the docks, but they were swarming and he was turned away again and again.

He returned to the inn not long after midday to ensure their bed hadn’t been let. Some of the men taking their dinner were large, either farmhands or soldiers. Anton watched them for a moment, hungry enough to wonder if Larrikin’s suggestion hadn’t had some merit, but then the innkeeper distracted him with a gruff, “Oy.”

Anton turned his gaze where it was due. “Aye?”

“Had someone looking for a mercenary earlier,” said the innkeeper. “Gave them your room. They want to talk to you about a series of jobs.”

“Which man?” Anton glanced around. Usually those asking for mercenaries chose to stay in the inn’s commons, recruiting whoever approached and was suitable. But the innkeeper gave him an address instead, and Anton frowned. “Did they say whereabouts the work would be?”

The innkeeper shrugged and moved off, and Anton considered. This wasn’t the first time he’d been contacted privately, strange as it was, and usually the interested party was a sorcerer. With luck they won’t be a clansman. Clansmen and nobility, in Anton’s experience, dealt less honestly than tradesmen and merchants—unless they were desperate, as with Rover’s lady.

Of more concern was that Anton didn’t know just where he would be sent. If it was within Dublin’s confines, he could maintain his bed here. If not and he was unprepared to leave immediately, he might lose the job to another mercenary sorcerer. He couldn’t afford that. In the end he decided to take all his belongings. If they weren’t required, he could return. If they were, he could send a note to Larrikin with his destination.

Within twenty minutes Anton had his bag packed and ensured Rover still had the bed at his disposal, and left the inn for the address he’d been given. It was at liberty, but large; nearly an estate. A very wealthy nobleman, then, to have an estate so near Dublin—and likely another on land elsewhere.

The major-domo who answered was short, with the sort of archness to his face that the sanctimonious possessed. “Yes?”

“Anton Shudder,” said Anton with a bow. “I was contacted for mercenary work.”

The major-domo’s expression cleared of suspicion, replaced with disdain. “Ah. Yes. This way.”

Anton followed quietly, taking in the house’s décor. It was opulent, which wasn’t surprising, but made in dark colours, which was. In spite of the size of the house the entrance hall was narrow, sacrificed for the ballroom Anton glimpsed through massive doors to the side. This family valued its privacy, to place all its area into the wings of the house instead of a visitor’s first impression. The hall opened into an equally narrow room dominated by twin curving staircases.

The major-domo led him to a small antechamber. “You will wait here.”

He turned to leave and Anton turned to enter, but there came a squeal from up the stairs. “Roddy! You brought me a gift!”

Anton turned in surprise, but the major-domo sighed. “Lady Constance—”

The woman descending the stairs was taller than Anton himself, with long black hair and pale skin, and the ample figure of a woman with plenty to eat. She was also beaming, and had her hands clasped to her chest in the manner of a delighted little girl.

Simple, Anton thought at once. Her face was misshapen, with a flattened nose and a lopsided mouth, and a twisted brow that made her squint to see. Her speech was far more articulate than he would have expected, but her manner confirmed the suspicion. She skipped down the last few steps and rushed over to take Anton’s arm. He shifted to let her have it, bowing as best as he could. “Lady Constance.”

No wonder they were such private people. The nobility took their appearances very seriously, and having a simple child in the family would certainly be cause to avoid visitors. At least they had not shut her in a room, and allowed her use of the estate.

She smiled down at him. Anton was a tall man, and very few people were able to look down on him; he wasn’t used to that person being a woman. It was somewhat unnerving. “Oh, Roddy, he’s so handsome! Wherever did you find him?”

“Your brother, Lady Constance—”

Lady Constance squealed and bounced on her toes, as a much younger girl would. As Mór had done. Anton’s chest tightened and the heat rose, and he swallowed to keep it down. ‘Roddy’ was rubbing his face and didn’t notice, Anton hoped, and Lady Constance was far too delighted. “Oh, I must give him flowers to thank him! Do you dance?”

It took a ringing moment for Anton to realise the question was directed at him. The heat tried to spread through his chest to his limbs, and he took a quick, stabilising breath to halt it. “I have not for a very long time,” he admitted, “but I used to dance with my sisters. Nothing, of course, quite so sophisticated as you would know, milady.”

She didn’t seem to register most of his words, save the most important part. “And he can dance too! Roddy, we’ll be in the ballroom!”

Anton anticipated her attempt to drag him off by laying his hand on her arm around his, and turning her, and matching her pace. She beamed at him. He felt very warm, in the worst way—the way unique to him alone. How could a chance request for work remind him so sharply of what had once been home? He couldn’t understand it.

He couldn’t change it, either, and he most certainly couldn’t afford to pass up the work. So he regulated his breathing, and gave the heat just enough acknowledgement that his chest didn’t begin to ache, and bade himself to walk loosely. It wasn’t much different from battle. As long as he kept moving, he couldn’t be caught and overcome.

Truthfully, the most Anton knew was a few local dances popular around Cork over a century ago, but Lady Constance didn’t seem to mind as long as he could swing her about with enough enthusiasm and didn’t stand on her toes. She laughed gaily as he did, not even remotely managing to keep a rhythm. Perhaps there was one in her head that only she could hear. Mór had used to do the same.

“Your brother, Lady Constance,” said ‘Roddy’ from the door, sounding very stiff.

Lady Constance giggled and fell against Anton, and wrapped her arms around him. Anton stood quite still, with his hands in very clear view. The man in the doorway was even taller than his sister, also dark-haired but thin and with an angular face. He regarded them with a blank expression and a vague air of resigned exasperation.

“Oh, Mevvy, he’s so graceful,” sighed Lady Constance. Then her head snapped up and her eyes grew very sharp, and she said, “If you’ve come to take him away I shan’t be pleased. I need a new toy. I want him. He’s mine.”

A trickle of unease made it way down Anton’s back. Even at her most selfish, Mór hadn’t treated people like possessions.

“Whyever would I take him away from you?” the lady’s brother asked smoothly. “Clearly, you’ve taken a liking. I should hate to see you unhappy.” He moved forward. He looked like a scholar, but he moved like a warrior. “But, my dear, I do have a need of him.”

“Find another,” said Lady Constance, gripping Anton possessively tight. He exhaled slowly through his gut and ignored the prickle in his skin.

_Kill her. Kill them. Let me._

“I’m afraid there’s no time for that,” said her brother. “But I promise I shall return him to you once I’ve finished with him.”

Lady Constance debated this. Anton said nothing, did nothing save breathe and ignore the restless turn of the Gist in his chest. “Oh, very _well_ ,” said Lady Constance at last, very long-suffering, and released Anton. “But if you break him, I shall be _most_ put out. Roddy!”

She put out her hand, quite imperiously, and Roddy came and took it, and led her away. Anton took deeper breaths, now he could do so with impunity.

“I do apologise,” said the brother, coming nearer. “She’s quite possessive of anything that strikes her fancy. Within the day, she’ll have forgotten you.”

Anton simply nodded. He didn’t like lying to one so innocent, but on occasion it had been necessary with Mór as well. The brother looked at him askance, with a penetrating sort of gaze. “Ah. Your Gist, I presume?”

That was startling. Most sorcerers assumed his magic involved some sort of martial art. Very few of them knew about the Gist, and most of those that did rarely realised he was the one who owned it. “It’s no trouble,” he said calmly. Being calm would make it so. “You are the one who requested my presence?”

“I am,” said the brother, and bowed slightly. “My name is Mevolent.”

What a strange and … rather unnerving name. Anton bowed more deeply. “Lord Mevolent.”

Mevolent turned toward the doorway. “Shall we?” The Gist had settled and movement would only help it remain calm, so Anton followed and picked up his belongings from beside the entrance. “There was no need to bring all you owned,” Mevolent observed.

“I was unsure whether or not I would be sent outside of Dublin,” said Anton.

“Not far enough to warrant travel,” said Mevolent, and led him out of the ballroom to a passage off the main hall. The small office into which they arrived was obviously meant for receiving visitors and employees. Anton guessed Mevolent’s more important work was done elsewhere. He stationed himself before the desk and Mevolent took the chair behind it, finding some papers.

“You’re no doubt aware that I hired you for your magical talents,” Mevolent said, looking up. “I’m in need of someone to defend some rather important investments.”

“And you’ve no one already in your employ?” Anton observed.

Mevolent smiled. “Plenty. None of them are Gist-users. Someone has been poking about my business in the past year, and my usual guards have not been effective in protecting my interests. I am hoping a greater show of strength will discourage them.”

“Then you wish to make my magic known?”

“I doubt that will be necessary,” said Mevolent. “Your presence will suffice.” He steepled his fingers and leaned on them, and looked at Anton. Even seated, Mevolent was nearly Anton’s height. “Of course, the investments I have currently are particularly important. I expect I will need your assistance for at least a week, with potential extension of your contract. You will be paid by the day.”

“My wage?”

“Two shillings.”

Two shillings a _day_. Either Mevolent was generous or this business was important indeed. Anton found he didn’t particularly care which. Either way if Rover’s business fell through they would be able to support themselves quite easily for a while.

“When do I begin?”

“Tonight,” said Mevolent, and smiled. “Thank you for your service, Mister Shudder.”

 

When Anton arrived back at the inn dusk was upon the city. Rover was most likely finished for the day. Possibly he had already eaten. He wasn’t in the commons, so Anton went up to their room. He opened the door and saw Rover on the floor beside the bed, clutching it to hold himself upright and drawing short, ragged breaths. Not nearly enough air. His eyes were wide and terrified.

Anton had seen that look before. He dropped his luggage and went to Rover, and pulled him into his arms. Rover’s head jerked up and he looked surprised through the panic, and then gripped Anton’s shoulder hard.

“Breathe with me,” Anton commanded, holding Rover against his chest. He kept his fingers on Rover’s shoulder and tapped twice, and breathed in deeply enough for Rover to feel it against his back. “Count with me.” After every second tap, he would inhale. After the fourth set Rover managed to follow. It was a gasping breath, as though it was the first he’d ever taken, but it was more controlled than the ones that had come before it.

They stayed like that for many minutes, taking air together and heeding the rhythm of Anton’s tapping fingers, until Rover finally took a deep breath and released it shakily. He slumped in Anton’s embrace. “Where did you—learn to do that?”

“My brother,” Anton said quietly, rubbing Rover’s collarbone. “Donncha would be taken by such fits when he saw rats.”

Rover took deep breaths. “Thought you—lived in a hovel.”

“We did.”

“His life—must have been horrible.”

“He entered the clergy as soon as he was able,” said Anton. “He felt he would be safer there. He wasn’t wrong. His monastery was cleaner than our home.” Neither of them spoke for some time but neither was inclined to move, until Anton finally asked, “What happened?”

Rover turned his face into the crook of Anton’s neck, as one ashamed, and said in a small voice, “I came back and you were gone.”

Anton frowned. “I’ve not been present when you returned to our inns before.”

“All your possessions were gone too.”

“I was contacted for work. I was unsure whether it would remain within the bounds of Dublin, so I took my luggage. I had planned to send you a note if I was unable to return.”

“Oh.”

Anton could feel the heat of Rover’s face on his neck. It wasn’t often Larrikin felt so humiliated, let alone showed it in such a way. Anton may not have enjoyed cuddling others, but Rover wasn’t usually so vulnerable, either. Not for the first time since they had met, Anton felt as though he was holding one of his younger siblings instead of a man his age.

“Why didn’t you mention you would react in such a way if I left?” Anton asked.

“I didn’t know,” Rover mumbled. “You’re the only one who’s ever stayed.”

There was no answer to that. Anton wasn’t the sort of man who pitied others. Pity changed very little. But Rover’s life had been harder than most, and Anton wouldn’t deny him what help he needed.

“I will not leave you,” he said quietly. “You help me control the Gist.”

Rover laughed. It wasn’t one of his happy laughs. “I talk too much.”

“That is what helps,” said Anton. “You provide a distraction.”

There came footsteps in the hall and the door opened before Rover could answer. Their room-mate entered and saw them so entangled, and cursed viciously before backing out and closing the door. Rover trembled in Anton’s arms, and this time his laughter came out muffled but true.

“He’ll be informing the innkeeper,” Anton said with a sigh. “We have some time before the guards arrive.”

“Oh, let them come,” Rover said, lifting a hand and then letting it flop. “Maybe they’ll learn to have some fun.”

Anton shoved him off his lap and he hit the floor with a squawk. Anton rose and looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not quite so easily seduced, Larrikin.” He turned to gather up his things, left on the floor, and the bundles on the bed. He paused. “This is a ham.”

“I was hungry.”

“You bought a ham.” Anton turned to look at him. “A ham, Larrikin. What about potatoes? Or oats? Even some bread would have been more practical than a ham.”

“It was a gift,” Larrikin grumbled, and bounced to his feet as though he were made of springs. “Mistress Aoife is generous. _Very_ generous. Divinely generous. She _gave_ me a ‘spare ham’. And then she paid me for _perhaps_ four hours of work and advice.” He fished a purse out of his tunic and shook it at Anton. “Gaze upon the day’s reaping, my dear Mister Shudder.”

Anton took the purse and opened it, and paused, sifting the coins through the leather. “There must be nearly twenty shillings in here.” And a number of pennies besides.

“I _know_.” Rover threw up his hands. “ _And_ she wants to pay me for teaching her anatripsis. Áine only knows how much that will turn up.”

“And I will have two shillings for a night’s work by morning,” said Anton.

“I don’t know about you, Mister Shudder, but I do believe we can afford a better inn than the one from which we’re soon to be arrested.”

“I agree.” Anton closed the purse and tucked it away into his own tunic, and Rover picked up his possessions.

“Maybe we’ll even be able to afford a _private_ room,” he said cheerfully, and sauntered through the door with only a wink cast behind him.


	8. Bothersome tendencies and breathtaking affinities

Anton stifled a yawn and walked between the crates, maintaining a view of the warehouse entrance. It was late. Most of his assigned duties had been at night. The main result was that Larrikin complained about being unable to sleep at night without anyone in his bed, but Anton, for his part, was enjoying having the bed to himself in the day.

He had not been obliged to use his Gist thus far. That fact was something of a relief. The boredom was more of a danger, and an unexpected one. It had been a long time since Anton had been alone with his own thoughts for hours on end.

_Let me taste blood. We will wreak vengeance. Let me out and we will take everything owed and more._

He wasn’t very fond of his own company.

“Missing me already, Shudder?” Anton asked aloud. “Not in the least,” he muttered back, and sighed, pausing to survey the warehouse from near the entrance. It was far from full and not stacked highly enough to block his view, which led him to believe that Mevolent had hired or bought it solely for his use. This was the sixth and final shipment which Anton had guarded from warehouse to destination. He didn’t know why such a length of time was required before each was moved, but neither was it his place to ask. This was the longest shift. He had arrived at dusk and it was early in the morning. Ten hours, he saw when he glanced at the night sky through the doors.

Something rattled on the other end of the warehouse and Anton moved to search for the cause, moving through the crates. Then he paused. There was nothing on the far end of the warehouse. No way to enter. Anton had made sure of it not an hour past.

Anton turned back and saw a youth peering at the side of the crates, holding a small handful of flames close so the letters might be seen.

“You must depart,” said Anton, and the youth whirled. He taller than Anton, but just barely, and in the dim light all Anton could see of his hair was that it was dark.

“Hello,” he said, recovering his composure nearly as quickly as Larrikin changed moods. He moved his hand surreptitiously behind his back, hiding the fact the flames were uncontained by glass or wick. “I realise this is unexpected, but I am a specialised customs agent. Were you aware that these crates contravene several articles of the International Trading Commission? I will have to look inside.”

“You may not,” said Anton, approaching him. The cut of the man’s outfit was tailored. That fact, combined with the smoothness of his voice, said he was a nobleman. What would a nobleman want out here on the docks in the middle of the night, and pretending to be a customs officer to boot?

_“Someone has been poking about my business,”_ Mevolent had said. Anton suspected he had just found that ‘someone’.

“I’m sure your employer would hate to discover his items have been repossessed due to your negligence in allowing the proper authorities access,” said the intruder. He was a quick thinker. Not as quick as Larrikin, but close.

“You have no authority,” said Anton calmly. “You are not a customs agent, and if you do not step away from the crates, I will be forced to harm you.”

“I see.” The youth paused. “I will, of course, have to report this to the harbourmaster.”

“Step away from the crates.”

“Your employer will no doubt demand recompense from you for the loss of his goods.”

_Kill him. Rend his flesh and drink his blood and—_

“Step away from the crates,” Anton repeated evenly.

The youth hesitated. “I don’t suppose you’ll accept it if I told you I’m a demon and you ought to allow me my space or I’ll damn you to hell?”

Anton crossed his arms. “I am also a sorcerer.”

“Ah.” The youth nodded. “I see. Then I apologise for this.” He raised his hand and threw fire, but Anton dodged. He felt air slam into him and grunted, but his hands were unbound and he threw one of his thin knives. The Elemental used air to deflect it, but the pressure holding Anton vanished and he lunged.

The Elemental whirled from trying to open a crate with a blade one-handed, but his wall of air wasn’t solid enough to do more than slow Anton down. Anton broke through it and took his arm and wrenched him away from the crates. The Elemental stumbled but kept his feet, and threw out his hand and clenched it. The air around Anton’s throat constricted, but he grasped the Elemental’s wrist and yanked him forward and his fist met with the Elemental’s face.

The man flew backward and hit the floor hard. He rolled and one hand came up to touch the blood on his lips, and he grunted his pain.

_Yes draw his blood let me tear him and—_

Anton set his feet apart and kept his hands loose at his sides, and breathed evenly. “If you continue to access the crates, I will be obliged to harm you further.”

“You—” The Elemental spat blood on the floor and groaned, and pressed a hand to his face. “You hit—harder than you look.”

_—take him and rend him paint the room with his life’s blood—_

“Leave.”

The Elemental staggered to his feet, holding his jaw. He made no move to leave, but he made no move to approach, either. He probed his jaw and winced, and Anton caught a glimpse of a missing tooth. But even in spite of the pain he must have felt, he regarded Anton with a sort of collective thoughtfulness Anton had rarely experienced. The last time had been a week ago, from Mevolent himself.

“Your—master is planning something,” he said finally, muffled because he attempted to avoid opening his mouth too far.

“Lord Mevolent is not my master,” said Anton.

The Elemental shrugged, very carefully. “Yet he is planning something. A coup against the current clan leadership at the Sanctuary landsmeet.”

“I have very little interest in politics.”

“You should,” said the man. “If he succeeds, he’ll subjugate everyone he can. In these crates is evidence of his duplicity. Aren’t you interested in discovering the details of such?”

Anton regarded the man with an impassive stare. “I was hired to defend his wares. Nothing more. I will not contravene the terms of my contract for the word of a man who had already attempted to deceive me twice, and then attacked me.”

The Elemental hesitated. “Yes, I see how that might come across. Rest assured it’s nothing personal. But I would think the integrity of Ireland’s magical government would be of enough importance to at least consider the prospect of investigating your employer.”

“I have no reason to trust you,” said Anton.

“Well, no, but—”

“Leave.”

“No chance of letting me sneak a peek, then?”

Anton didn’t respond, and simply looked at him. The Elemental nodded and then winced. “Very well. Good morning.”

He turned and limped away. Anton followed him to the door and watched as he moved at a brisk but lopsided pace down the docks and toward the streets. Only once he was out of sight did Anton turn to return to the crates. The one the Elemental had attempted to open had two edges pulled up. Anton laid his hand on the top to press the nails down, and hesitated, looking at the lettering on the side of the crate.

He didn’t know what it said. Anton couldn’t read. He had been a labourer all his life; he had never had any need of the skill, nor the coin to buy such learning.

For a moment the Elemental’s words swam in his mind. Anton had never considered the magical government too deeply, but if a coup would end in war, certainly it would be the concern of all sorcerers in Ireland. Mevolent’s family were very secretive. His sister in particular was strange, but not strange in the manner of someone who was simple. She was … possessive, and over people, in a manner even children weren’t.

It wouldn’t take much to see just what was in one of these very important crates.

Then reason and integrity intervened. Anton’s contract stipulated that the crates be unopened during transport. Even if he was able to cover the evidence of tampering, he was neither thief nor spy. He would not sink to such levels.

With a firm hand Anton pushed the crate’s lid flush with its sides, and then returned to his patrol of the warehouse.

 

The wagons didn’t arrive until dawn. Anton was relieved when they did, but his work didn’t end until the crates were safely delivered. He patrolled the labourers as they loaded the wagons, examining their clothes and faces. The aristocratic Elemental hadn’t returned, but that did not discount him sending another.

Anton counted the labourers to ensure their numbers hadn’t swelled or lessened, and watched them in case anyone paid special attention to any one of the crates. When the two wagons were prepared he watched the labourers drift away with their wage, and counted those who remained.

No one had attempted to open the crates. That was a good sign. Either the Elemental was particularly inept, or overly used to charming or blackmailing people into giving him what he needed. Mevolent had said that his usual guards had not been effective in protecting his interests. Perhaps they had been bribed or perhaps they had been tricked.

Neither explained why Mevolent wished to hire Anton specifically. His magical talents didn’t make him more or less susceptible to either.

Perhaps he would ask when he reached the estate. Today was the day his contract would either be extended or terminated. He was inclined toward the latter. The wage was exceptional, but now more than ever it was clear how much he relied upon Larrikin’s distractions to block the Gist’s desires. With the coin Rover would receive from his current patron they weren’t relying upon Anton’s stipend.

By the time he reached Mevolent’s clan estate it was midmorning. Anton would have left immediately with his wage—three shillings for the day-and-half work—but Roderick stiffly informed him that Lord Mevolent wished to see him in his office.

When Anton knocked on the door Mevolent bade him enter, and Anton stopped before his desk with a short bow. “You summoned me?”

“Yes,” said Mevolent, and set down his quill. “If you’ll recall, I have had issue with interlopers into my business of late.”

“I recall.”

“Is there anything you wish to report?”

“There was a man at the warehouse last night,” Anton said. “He attempted to open one of the crates. I stopped him.”

“Have you a description?”

“Tall. Dark-haired. Very assured. I could not see well.”

Mevolent gazed at him for quite a while and Anton gazed back, keeping a subtle rhythm to his breathing. He was weary and his chest felt tight, and he felt uneasy. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the Elemental’s words had sunk in. Perhaps it was simply the sense of oddity he had felt since Lady Constance had ‘claimed’ him as her possession. Whatever the cause, Anton wanted to leave.

“I see,” said Mevolent at last. “Very well. In that event, I would like to extend to you an offer.”

“I would have to decline.”

Mevolent raised one thin eyebrow. “You haven’t yet heard the offer.”

“Your wages are generous,” Anton conceded, “but I find the work is not quite agreeable at this time.”

“Ah.” Mevolent smiled. “Would that be due to the Gist?”

_Let me have him._

Anton paused. “How did you know?’

_Let me kill him for you._

“I’ve done some research into the condition caused by the Gist,” said Mevolent, and leaned on his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers. “Do you know how the magic works, Mister Shudder?”

_Let me punish him for daring to know us._

“I do not.”

_Let me have him and we will feast._

“A Gist is a manifestation,” said Mevolent. “That much, I’m sure you know. But it isn’t the sort of magic one can simply stumble upon. In fact it is a result, a side-effect if you will, of another form.”

_I will tear out his tongue and rip open his chest and—_

Anton’s ears rang. “What sort of magic?”

“A geas,” said Mevolent. “A binding promise made to your magic itself. A set of conditions which allow you control of your darkest side as long as those conditions are met.”

_I will_ destroy _him and feed upon the remains—_

Anton took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Mevolent watched him. “It’s giving you trouble now, is it not?”

“I am in control.”

“Yes,” said Mevolent. “For now. But for how long? History has never recorded a Gist-user living much past three-hundred.”

_—when I am free, and all will fear us, and we will bathe in blood—_

“What are you suggesting?”

“I can help you break your geas without killing you or forcing you to submit to the Gist,” said Mevolent, and Anton went very still. The Gist writhed, and the heat pooled in his chest and gut and tried to spread to his limbs.

_You’ll never be free of me. You’re mine, and will be. Always._

“You’re having trouble with it now, as well,” Mevolent observed, and it still took Anton a moment to speak.

“How can you promise this?”

“I have studied magic few even dream exists,” said Mevolent. “My knowledge of the Gist’s workings should prove that to you. I do not have a cure, as yet, but if you work with me I will promise to aid you.”

The idea was … alluring. Impossible. Surely it was impossible.

_I will take you first. You’re mine. You’re_ me _. You cannot deny what’s within you. Eventually, I will win._

The heat seared. Anton fixed his gaze past Mevolent’s head and breathed. Mevolent waited patiently until the Gist subsided enough for Anton to answer. But it was still there; still a presence in his head, in his body, a demon just waiting for the chance to take over. If he pressed the issue, if he accepted—if Mevolent was right and the Gist was bound to him through a geas, would attempting to remove it constitute breaking that geas?

“Your offer is—”

Seductive. Ridiculous. Impossible.

“—tempting, but I must still decline.”

_Yes. Decline. Become me and prove you cannot be bound to a master._

“You’d rather risk the Gist consuming you?” Mevolent asked.

_Only a matter of time._

“I fear that challenging it in such a way may have the same result.”

“You’ve less control of it than you pretend,” Mevolent observed, and then sighed, pulling a card close to write on it. “Very well. If you feel the risk is worth the reward in the future, I would be willing to accommodate you.”

He held out the card and Anton took it stiffly, and bowed, and left as swiftly as courtesy allowed. He walked back to his inn with his ears ringing, feeling very hot and flushed. The streets were crowded and he kept his head down, and kept breathing, and kept moving.

_Stop fighting me. Stop and all will be simple, and glorious, and none would stand before us._

Anton bypassed the inn commons and went straight up to their private room. He opened the door and Rover looked up with a broad grin. “Anton! Fancy seeing—what’s wrong?”

“Talk to me,” said Anton, and the words felt raspy in his throat.

_No more talking. Let me out._

Rover leapt up and took his arm. “I finished work this morning,” he said gleefully, dragging him over to the patch of floor he was using as a flat surface. The small fireplace shone with hot coals—an indulgence insisted upon by Rover, more than a necessity. “I finished work this morning, and let me just say that Aoife is a _very_ capable lady and Ardan is a very lucky man. I’d have _loved_ to experience her new expertise first-hand. Whoof!”

He pushed Anton down to his knees and Anton submitted to the motion. His fingers tingled.

_No. Take him. Kill him._

“Look at my well-gotten gains,” Rover crowed, indicating the coins with a sweeping gesture. “Not just from Aoife, mind. Well, those piles over there are from Aoife. These piles are from gambling with what Aoife gave me. That pile is from selling the ham she forced upon me this morning.”

Anton looked at the piles of shillings and pennies, groats and sixpences. Rover had already counted them into increments of shillings or pounds, but lopsidedly.

“It’s difficult to gain an accurate count of our finances if you separate them by means,” he observed, and picked up the small pile gained from the ham.

_Heed me. Kill for me. Let me out!_

“It was more fun that way!” Rover protested, but he flopped by Anton’s side, picked his pocket carelessly and shook out the rest of the coins Anton had been carrying. “Besides, I didn’t count _yours_ , so we have to start over anyway.” With one sweep of his arm all the piles went tumbling.

“Now we have to start from scratch,” Anton said.

“Now we can count _all_ our coins again,” Rover answered happily, scooping them closer to him. “All our lovely, lovely coins. Here, help me find all the farthings. Then we can move on to the halfpennies, and then the pennies, and then—”

The Gist snarled. Anton ignored it. His chest was tight and hot, but it loosened by degrees as Rover tallied their funds cheerfully. The final count made the Elemental choke on a squeak and hug Anton sideways.

“We’re rich!”

“We’ve some extra coin,” Anton cautioned, scooping just enough for a few days into his purse and allowing Rover to shovel the rest into a larger bag. “This is no reason to begin living indulgently.”

“But we can live a _little_ indulgently, right?” Rover demanded, and shook a handful of shillings at him enticingly. “After all, I did sell that ham. I was a good boy.”

Anton sighed. “What are you planning, Larrikin?”

“China,” said Rover promptly. “We can take a ship. If we take a ship we can sign up. I can be a mate. You can be the cook. You’re a good cook. We’ll sail to China and sneak into Shanghai and—”

“And be hunted for outsiders or deserters.”

Rover flapped a dismissive hand. “Makes life interesting. It’s either that or we go overland, and then you’ll see the back of your precious coin very, _very_ quickly.” He debated. “I take it back; let’s go overland. We can hire ourselves out as mercenaries, and then you can train your dog. And we get to see the nations in-between! It’s been a while since I went past the Continent.”

Anton shook his head. “Why _China_?”

“Mistress Aoife says their knowledge of herbalism is nearly unrivalled. It would be good for my business.”

Far be it for Anton to deny Rover an interest in expanding his business. Yet still he hesitated.

“Pleeeeeeeease?” Rover flopped on his lap and clasped his hands up at him. “Pleeeeease, Anton, I’m so _bored_ with the Kingdoms and the Continent and the New World! China, Anton! You’ve never been to China!”

Anton waited for the Gist to answer, to seethe at him about Rover’s bothersome tendencies. There was nothing. The heat in his chest had subsided. Anton smiled. “I suppose I could do with a change in scenery.”

Rover whooped and leapt to his feet, and snatched up their bag of coin, stuffed with rags to muffle the clink. “Yes! You sleep. You sleep on our coin like a dragon. I’m going to find a merchant heading to the Continent. We can even work on the ship and earn more coin, and then when we get to the Continent we’ll be richer, and then—”

He prattled all the way out of the room. Anton shook his head, and rose to strip down so he could sleep. His hand caught on an edge in his pocket and he found Mevolent’s card. He crumbled it and threw it into the fire, and crawled into the bed with his head on their bag full of coin.


	9. The art of seduction

The baker was sweating. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but he’d sold at least two loaves with rocks in them to gain the required weight, and now there was an official from the trading guild lurking around. The word had been passed down, stall to stall, whispers about someone cheating their customers. The baker called out his wares, and was betrayed by a crack in his voice.

Four stalls down a journeyman weaver almost slumped with relief as the official stopped at the baker’s stall. His crime wasn’t nearly so bad, he reasoned. Alright, so some, or rather chunks, of his wool was woven with goat and human hair, but it only changed the consistency a _little_ bit and still kept people warm. It wasn’t nearly as bad as giving people rocks to eat. With greater confidence he shook out one of the weavings toward the wending snake of humanity moving through the streets and alleys.

_Erskine wouldn’t like that._ Even though Erskine hadn’t done a weaving in two years. Erskine didn’t tend to think about it, but he was just a little bit of a perfectionist. If he was going to do something, he would at least do it well—even if that something was ‘nothing much’.

_Hopeless—_

Hopeless shook his head, watching the weaver, and felt Ghastly see him. The tailor’s resigned irritation came through a moment later and he walked away from the leatherworker’s stall.

“Is it just me,” he said as he came to Hopeless’s side, standing away under the corner eaves of a building flanking the square.

“It’s not just you,” said Hopeless.

_—or are there an awful lot of bandits here today._

“It’s still rude to answer a question before it’s asked, you know,” Ghastly grumbled, pulling away his hood just enough so only Hopeless could see him. “And you need to be careful.”

Concern, Hopeless had found, was warm—at least when it was directed at him personally. He still wasn’t used to that and it made him duck his head and smile. The smile broadened a little when Ghastly felt annoyed by the reservation in the motion and satisfaction at the reaction.

“No one can hear us,” Hopeless explained, still more softly than he had to for safety’s sake. It wasn’t a matter of safety. It was just … ingrained. Speak softly, and carry the shield of his faith. At least he still had one out of the two. “Have you ever sold anything at a fair?”

Asking the question alone gave him the answer, and Ghastly knew it, but he still paused to be amused over its unexpectedness and the fact that Hopeless had asked. Ghastly had made the choice not to hold Hopeless’s power against him, but he was still passively fascinated by the ways Hopeless handled it. In spite of his frequent censure about answering unasked questions, Ghastly still wondered why Hopeless asked at all.

But he never asked why Hopeless did. He just accepted it. It was a relief, quite frequently—as fascinating as Skulduggery’s mind was, as much as Hopeless could learn from him just listening to him from a distance for an afternoon, Skulduggery still made his head ache sometimes. It wasn’t the way his thoughts ran; it was just the fact that he did always ask why. Having secrets aired and actually being expected to answer, to _confront_ those secrets, was another thing to which Hopeless still wasn’t adjusted.

“I don’t need to sell what we tailor outside of the shop,” said Ghastly. “At least not in a market—Father and I sometimes went to sell at some of the larger fairs at liberty. But when I was a little bit—” His voice was wry and his mind nostalgic at the name his father had given him a long time ago, before any of them knew Ghastly would inherit his ancestors’ bulk. “—sometimes I used to hawk small things for children. Gloves, scarves, stockings. They were popular, since I could sell them cheaply, having made them myself and all.”

“Why did you stop?”

Ghastly paused, turning the question over and over in his head. “You know, I don’t know.”

He just had, about the time he got to be tall enough to see the top of Father’s desk, even using a stool. There had been other things on his mind, other ways to learn the trade, at that point.

“What do you do with the fabric scraps now?”

“That depends on whether they’re re-usable,” Ghastly admitted, and glanced across at him, his thoughts full of idle wonder, once more, at the casual display for just how much Hopeless read. Both Skulduggery and Ghastly had given him permission a long time ago, but it was Skulduggery who encouraged him not to actively block out the little nuances that accompanied each thing he heard. Ghastly had made the little bits from scraps of fabric his father couldn’t use.

“Alright,” said Ghastly, in equal amounts amused and exasperated. “Maybe I’ll start up again. What’s this all about? You can’t have just one day decided I needed a hobby.”

Hopeless felt his cheeks warm, saw the blush through Ghastly’s eyes, and smiled sheepishly. “I can take them, if you … don’t mind.” A moment later he added, in response to Ghastly’s unspoken question, “I already have a hobby.”

“You?” Ghastly asked, surprised. “I thought you said you couldn’t imagine doing anything else other than what you’re already doing.” That had been a year ago, but Hopeless hadn’t yet given Ghastly much reason to think that had changed.

“I didn’t think of it as a hobby,” Hopeless admitted, “or even as a viable alternative. Not until more recently.”

Ghastly doubted that had anything to do with either of them. He couldn’t remember talking or thinking about hobbies with Hopeless, or at least not in a way that would spur this sort of self-deliberation. That alone made it curious. Ghastly didn’t think Hopeless had any friends other than them, and that thought instantly made him feel so chagrined that Hopeless had to smile slightly.

“He’s not exactly a friend,” Hopeless explained. “Although I—” He blushed again and cleared his throat. “I like him. He’s funny, and straight-forward in a way that pretends not to be. And he’s a lot more charming than Skulduggery.”

Ghastly laughed, and his next thought was very deliberately directed, half a question and half a tease. _And when you say ‘like’ …?_

Now that was getting close to a topic Hopeless had been avoiding talking about with Skulduggery for the past year, and although it might be funny to tell it to Ghastly first, this wasn’t the place Hopeless particularly wanted to get into it.

“I mean I’d like him to be a friend,” he said firmly. He just … wasn’t sure how to go about doing that. Ghastly and Skulduggery were motivated men. They’d latched onto him, pursued a friendship with him. Erskine wasn’t like that. He’d spent too long aimless to realise that he could have ambition if he wanted to. That meant that Hopeless would have to be the one to actively make it a friendship, and he didn’t know how to do that, even without the added drawback of unintentionally eavesdropping on Erskine’s mind. Erskine wouldn’t react nearly as graciously as Ghastly and Skulduggery had, and Hopeless wasn’t willing to risk breaking the budding camaraderie they might be developing.

“If he’s made you think about hobbies, then it might be a good idea,” said Ghastly, and his approval shone like the sun and made Hopeless duck his head again, hunching back into the wall in a manner more with private delight than embarrassment.

“He commissioned some books from me,” Hopeless said.

“Books?” Ghastly echoed, startled again. “You make books?”

Hopeless nodded self-consciously, his fingers running over the prayer-rope in his pocket. “It’s something I did at the monastery. I just never stopped. It never occurred to me that I might be able to do anything with them other than use them to add to Master Meritorious’s library.”

It was simultaneously exactly like him and somehow incredibly surprising, and Ghastly couldn’t decide which was the more important. “How did he find out?” he asked at last, bemused, just to give his own thoughts a direction—though he didn’t know it.

“He came with a colleague of Master Meritorious’s one day six months ago, and saw me making one,” said Hopeless. “So he asked if I could make him a cartography book for a friend’s tercentennial, and when he picked it up last week he insisted on paying me for it. It was odd.”

For a moment Ghastly was torn between several different reactions, but in the end laughter won out. “Only you would find it strange to receive payment for your work.”

“It made me think about some other things I used to do at the monastery which might be useful,” Hopeless said softly. “I couldn’t sell books at a market. Maybe at a fair, but I wouldn’t be able to take the time out to travel for it.”

“You could leave that to me and Skulduggery,” said Ghastly. Either the part about selling the books, or the part about ensuring he had that time he didn’t think he was owed. Hopeless declined to comment on the passive assertion.

He _would_ have gone on, but there was a surge in the winding hum of people. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but it was directed at someone Hopeless knew very well, on a level he had never expected he’d be able to do, and the emotion sucked at him. He straightened up off the wall, and only knew he had because Ghastly wondered at it. Without pausing to explain Hopeless dove into the crowd, following those ragged-edged emotions and the backwash of surprise, disapproval, curiosity, enjoyment from the witnesses. It wasn’t all that long before they could hear the culprits verbally themselves, either.

Or rather the culprit, single, if only because the other culprit was stunned into confused silence.

“—unconscionably arrogant and obnoxious man I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter, and I swear, I swear on the _Virgin Mary’s sacred grave_ —”

There was an echo of gasps.

“—that if you come within ten _feet_ of me, or my household, or even an _inkling_ of doing so, I will take a very sharp implement, like perhaps a _barber’s razor_ , and I will personally use them to cut off the sack full of balls you call your manhood!”

Ghastly pulled his hood closer and groaned quietly, and there was half an incredulous laugh in it. Hopeless felt it in the man’s own chest, more than heard it over the flurry of scandalised whispers which covered Liliya Artemis’s furious exit. Scandalised or not, every single person parted for her.

“Skulduggery?” Ghastly asked, and Skulduggery turned, a rare expression of baffled consternation all over his face and ringing in his thoughts. His thoughts which were, for once, almost still.

“I don’t know what I did,” he said, and sounded nearly as consternated as he felt.

Hopeless closed his lips and cast his gaze down toward the ground, and didn’t answer. He couldn’t be certain his answer would be nearly as objective as he’d like it to be if he did. Ghastly took Skulduggery’s arm and they made a quick exit in spite of the passersby trying to see the unfortunate fellow responsible for the hullaballoo.

Ghastly was considerate enough to give them time to gain an empty alley-entrance before bursting into mystified laughter. “What did you _do_?”

“I just told you,” said Skulduggery, sounding affronted, “I haven’t the faintest idea. Hopeless, what did I do?”

“You were being obnoxious and pushy,” Hopeless answered automatically, and then reddened. The fact that he felt exasperated by the blush as well as embarrassed was a step up, though he could wish he had stopped feeling quite so chastened about answering questions to which he wasn’t meant to know the answers. The fact was that he _did_ , and neither Skulduggery nor Ghastly saw any point in his feeling guilty over something he couldn’t control.

“I was no such thing,” said Skulduggery, and then paused. “Was I?”

“What were they talking about?” Ghastly asked, humour and concern and curiosity all melding together into one nuanced and somewhat irritating emotion.

“ _We_ were talking about shopping,” said Skulduggery.

“You were accusing her of being a frivolous person subject to the whims of her emotions,” said Hopeless.

“You know,” said Skulduggery thoughtfully, “I think this is a good start to answering that question you’ve been avoiding all this time.”

“What question?” Ghastly demanded. Hopeless sighed and surprised himself with it, and ran through the Lord’s Prayer in his head until some of the edge had gone away from Liliya’s most demanding thoughts.

“I’ve been trying to get Hopeless to talk to me about his feminine side,” Skulduggery explained to Ghastly. It took a moment for Ghastly’s realisation to dawn, turn into startled shock and a deep but uncomfortable humour.

“I—didn’t think of that.”

“I did,” grumbled Skulduggery, “and he’s been avoiding answering. Or should I say she?”

“He, thank you,” Hopeless muttered. He had realised a long time ago the implications of what Skulduggery was now indicating, and had decided at the same time that following his body’s physical sex made things a lot simpler than he otherwise wanted to handle.

“You _are_ being Miss Artemis, aren’t you?”

“If I was being Miss Artemis, I might have taken a knife to your balls by now,” said Hopeless, and then his mind and training caught up with his mouth and this time his blush did deepen.

“How interesting,” Skulduggery murmured.

Ghastly stared. “So when you said you like that new friend of yours—”

“Hopeless has a new friend?”

“I meant it when I’d like him to be a _friend_ ,” Hopeless grumbled. “Just because all the women on staff happen to be in love with him doesn’t mean anything.”

“Hopeless is in love?” Skulduggery asked, and far from sounding baffled, he only sounded amused. Hopeless glared and Skulduggery laughed and held up his hands. “Temporarily in love, then. That does answer something I was wondering. You _did_ say strong emotion influences you the most.”

“In this case, it’s not mine,” said Hopeless, “so the point is moot either way.”

“Are we talking about your new friend, or Miss Artemis?” Ghastly asked.

“I’m going to choose to talk about Miss Artemis, myself,” Hopeless said.

“I’d really rather—”

“No.”

“You’re interrupting me. I’ve taught you well.”

“You asked what you did. I’m willing to tell you, if only because Liliya would desperately like you to know what a jackass you are and doesn’t quite have the words or composure to do it.”

“He _is_ being Miss Artemis,” Skulduggery said to Ghastly.

“Skulduggery,” said Ghastly, “shut up and listen to the sex-changing mind-reader.”

“I hate you both,” Hopeless muttered.

“Go ahead and lambast us,” Ghastly told him with slightly frazzled mirth, sitting on an empty crate by the entrance and away from a stack of refuse. “Or at least Skulduggery, since he’s the one who was threatened with castration.”

“Traitor,” Skulduggery accused, and Hopeless took a few controlled breaths, turning one of the prayer-rope’s knots over in his fingers. Skulduggery had been encouraging him not to feel guilty, and to allow himself the nuances, but Hopeless still didn’t feel right about just revealing everything about a person to someone who really had no right to know.

He chose to begin with, “Why do you like her?”

“ _Like_ her?” Skulduggery looked startled, and then thoughtful. “She’s engaging. She knows who she is more than any other woman I’ve met hereabouts, and she certainly isn’t afraid to speak her mind.”

“There are other magical women in Dublin,” Ghastly pointed out.

“Yes, and most of them are boring beyond words. Miss Artemis is the sort to go out and do things, though she has thus far resisted all my attempts to discover where her passions lay.”

“I wonder why,” Ghastly muttered.

“How have you tried to discover where her passions lay?” Hopeless asked. Skulduggery gave him an amused look, and crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.

“I know what you’re doing, and because I know it, I’m going to let you do it. All the usual ways, of course. I _am_ a detective, after all.”

Now Ghastly was staring at him, and the tailor’s incredulity met with the detective’s confused smug until Hopeless covered his face in a bid not to laugh.

“Skulduggery,” said Ghastly, “tell me you haven’t been _following_ her.”

Skulduggery looked affronted. “Of course not. I don’t need to _follow_ anyone. I’ve been _investigating_ her. And if we happen to meet one another along the way, it’s more opportunity to try and learn more about her.” Ghastly stared some more and Hopeless lost his battle with laughter, and the sound of it, even light though it was, was still unusual enough that Skulduggery’s smug faded into uncertainty. Almost. “Aha. I knew I could get you to laugh eventually.”

Hopeless was smiling as he shook his head, but it was a self-conscious smile. He couldn’t remember ever having laughed like that before, though he had been coming closer and closer since he’d been accepted into Skulduggery’s association.

“Skulduggery,” he said gently, “women like Liliya don’t appreciate having their boundaries invaded.”

“No one likes having their boundaries invaded,” said Skulduggery, “but it’s something I do all the time in the pursuit of knowledge, and the two of you don’t seem to mind. What does that have to do with anything?”

Hopeless looked at Ghastly. Ghastly shrugged. Hopeless sighed.

“She was at a stall for exotic sweets, Skulduggery.”

“I did notice that, yes.”

“You said that she hadn’t seemed like the sort to waste her money on frivolous or whimsical expenses.”

“I seem to recall saying something of the sort.” Skulduggery’s expression remained politely baffled, but expectant. So did his mind. It was turning over and over, trying to connect the lines it was so good at connecting, and failing, and being irritated at itself for doing so. It was a little bit like watching an annoyed litter of kittens fight with one another, but unwilling to admit none of them were getting anywhere or wanted to stop. Hopeless couldn’t help but smile, exasperated though it turned out to be.

“Skulduggery,” he said, and then stopped, trying to figure out the best way to explain without actively breaching Liliya’s privacy. “Skulduggery, you’re a man.”

“Isn’t _she_ astute?” Skulduggery asked Ghastly. “Well worth paying for the mind-reading.”

“The mind-reading you’re _not_ paying for, you mean?”

Hopeless sighed. “You may have noticed that a lot of men tend to think less of women just for being women.”

“I had noticed that,” Skulduggery agreed, and his head tilted in puzzlement, “but I’m not one of them.”

“Liliya doesn’t know that.”

“Of course she does. She’s far too intelligent and observant to have mistaken me for a boar.”

“You act like a boar, Skulduggery.”

The surprised bafflement this time, Hopeless felt sure, was something Liliya would have enjoyed seeing to the ends of her days. “I do?”

“You saw how people reacted to her today, when she told you to leave her alone,” Hopeless said. “It isn’t socially acceptable for a woman to outright refuse a man. She has to do it through hints and prods. But you ignore hints and prods in the pursuit of knowledge, and push into her personal boundaries, and she dislikes that very much. It makes her feel very vulnerable. Men who don’t know where to stop aren’t generally men with whom women are safe.”

For a very long moment Skulduggery said nothing at all, though he stared past Hopeless at the wall. Neither Hopeless nor Ghastly said anything either, the latter because he knew Skulduggery too well to interrupt him and Hopeless because he could hear the process of thought. Eventually, however, Skulduggery looked at Hopeless, sounding uncertain. “I know where to stop.”

“You know where _you_ want to stop,” Hopeless corrected. “But where you want to stop is a very, very different place that a woman might want you to stop, and by popping up and needling Miss Artemis every time you do, you’re making her uncomfortable.”

“What does this have to do with whimsical purchases?”

“You demeaned her intelligence.”

“Did I? When?”

Hopeless rubbed his forehead and wondered why he hadn’t noticed he had been pulled into this conversation early enough to stop it. “Liliya isn’t the sort to waste her money,” he said, “so that was insulting on its own. But then you suggested that she was ruled by flights of fancy. Do you know, Skulduggery, how the opinions of a woman are usually dismissed by their men?”

“Some ridiculous bunk about being too emotional to—oh.” Skulduggery went quiet.

“Miss Artemis is not the sort of condone being dismissed,” said Hopeless quietly, “let alone for being a woman, and she isn’t the sort to just let someone walk all over her, but you never seem to pick up on her hints to stop pushing. Whenever she meets with you, those things are all you seem to do. Today was the last straw.”

For a very particular reason Hopeless had no intention of explaining, but for which he held the greatest sympathies to all those subject to womanhood.

After a moment Skulduggery nodded. “Right then. Back to the sweets stall.”

“Back to the sweets stall?” Ghastly asked. “Why?”

“So I can get her what she was trying to buy before I interrupted her, of course. It’s a thoughtful apology, don’t you think?”

“It would be, if you _knew_ what she was after,” Ghastly pointed out, but Skulduggery waved his hand.

“I don’t need to know. I have Hopeless for that.”

“There isn’t any left at that stall,” said Hopeless. “That’s why she was irritable to begin with—she’s been all over the fair, and couldn’t find what she wanted.”

“There _is_ some left somewhere, isn’t there?” Skulduggery asked, and if the tenor of his thoughts were edged with desperation, Hopeless certainly wasn’t going to mention it. He just permitted himself a smile, a smile enough like Skulduggery’s own that the detective pointed at him. “You’re learning well.”

This time the smile was smaller and a little more genuine, and Hopeless turned to lead them through the fair to one particular stall which still had what they wanted. He pointed. “Eight ounces of this.”

“Chocolate?” Skulduggery asked, sounding a little frazzled. “ _Expensive_ chocolate?”

“For the miss, sirrah?” asked the stall-owner with a giant grin. “Good choice, ’tis, came all the way from the Far East.”

“Very expensive chocolate,” Ghastly murmured from inside his hood.

“Are you sure?” Skulduggery asked Hopeless. Hopeless gave him his best imitation of Master Meritorious’s long, even stare without actively taking on his master’s characteristics. “Ah. Silly question. Very well, then. A pound.”

“Eight ounces,” Hopeless corrected, and the stall-owner looked between them.

“It’s a gift, Hopeless,” Skulduggery pointed out. “If it’s something she likes, then it stands to reason that she will appreciate more of it.”

Hopeless closed his eyes and recited three lines of the Lord’s Prayer. “Skulduggery, she _loves_ chocolate. Chocolate is also fattening. Giving food as a gift obliges the receiver to eat _all_ of it. While this is not ordinarily an issue, Liliya Artemis is a lady who values being able to fit into dresses that don’t require a corset. If you give her more than eight ounces, she will not appreciate the extra chocolate. She will hate you for _forcing_ her to eat every last piece of that terribly delicious, fattening chocolate, because obviously the only reason you would give her a whole pound is to delight in watching her lose whatever figure and fitness she currently has to that terribly delicious, fattening chocolate.”

He opened his eyes to find all three men were staring at him. “Cor,” said the stall-owner after a moment, “I don’t s’pose you can translate _my_ wife for me?”

“He _is_ terribly good at that,” Skulduggery agreed. “Eight ounces of the chocolate, please.”

“Probably a wise choice, sirrah,” said the stall-owner, taking a box and very, very carefully measuring out exactly eight ounces of chocolate onto the scales. “Anything else I can get for you?”

“I think that’s more than enough,” Skulduggery said, and winced at the price, and nearly emptied his purse paying for it.

“Are you sure this is worth it?” Ghastly asked as they moved away and Skulduggery shook his purse morosely.

“I should hate for Miss Artemis to think I’m a boar when I’m not,” said Skulduggery, and put his purse away. Ghastly watched him with a smile and his mind turned thoughtfully around an unaired suspicion, and his smile grew wider. He glanced at Hopeless and Hopeless grinned back, and the surprised approval rang in Ghastly’s mind as the tailor laughed.

Hopeless had never grinned before. He liked it, and liked the reaction it got, though he didn’t think he’d do it too often.

“If the two of you are quite finished,” Skulduggery grumbled, torn between curiosity and confusion.

“Just about,” said Ghastly. “How do you plan to deliver the chocolate?”

“I was considering—” Hopeless cleared his throat. Skulduggery sighed. “However Hopeless says I should.”

“With a note,” said Hopeless at once, “and a delivery, and you are _not_ allowed to go and ‘investigate’ her reaction.” He smiled. “I have just the paper. Come along.”

He took the lead and worked easily through the crowd, and heard Skulduggery mutter behind him to the conflicting accompaniment of satisfaction, “I think I liked him better before he was a busybody.”


End file.
